Bradley Beal and Spencer Dinwiddie the newest names to miss NBA restart

The bad news continues unabated for the Brooklyn Nets and the Washington Wizards as Bradley Beal and Spencer Dinwiddie are both out for the NBA’s restart.

Woj bombs and reports from Shams have taken on a whole different meaning since the NBA suspended its season due to the coronavirus pandemic back on March 11th. Once, not that long ago, a notification from ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski or The Athletic’s Shams Charania was an exciting event, full of rumors, trades and free agent signings. Now, reports of COVID-19 positive tests and players opting out of the NBA’s restart are the norm, and Bradley Beal and Spencer Dinwiddie are the most recent names to make their way into those reports.

On Tuesday, Charania announced that Beal would miss the restart with a shoulder injury. The Washington Wizards guard had been on the fence about returning to action in the Orlando bubble, but hopefully the extra time to work and rehab through this offseason will produce a healthy 2020-21 season.

He had perhaps the greatest season ever to not earn an All-Star spot, averaging 30.5 points per game, and he carried the Wizards to a spot just outside the playoffs looking in all without his All-Star backcourt mate John Wall.

The Wizards look to be essentially drawing dead for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. They will be without not only both Beal and Wall, but Davis Bertans as well. With a 24-40 record, they’re 6.0 games behind the eighth-seeded Orlando Magic with just eight games to play.

As for Spencer Dinwiddie, he recently tested positive for COVID-19 and he has experienced symptoms that have rendered him unable to prepare for the restart, and on Tuesday he was ruled out for the Brooklyn Nets after another positive test and continued symptoms.

Dinwiddie elaborated in a tweet:

The Brooklyn Nets have been essentially crippled by a combination of injuries and COVID-19 since Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant signed with them just over a year ago.

While Durant wasn’t going to play this season regardless, Irving battled injuries and only played 20 games. Dinwiddie carried the Nets in Irving’s absence, and his own absence will be critical for the 30-34 squad currently sitting in the Eastern Conference’s seventh seed.

Dinwiddie isn’t the only Net to miss the NBA’s Orlando restart bubble. DeAndre Jordan recently tested positive for COVID-19 and opted out of playing when the league returns to action at the end of July.

The Wizards had very little chance to move into a playoff spot to begin with, and the Nets had next to no chance of beating the top-seeded Milwaukee Bucks or whoever finishes second in the conference either, but their desolate situation has only been solidified over the last week or so with these developments.

Now, with both teams wracked by injuries, players will have to step up in unexpected ways. For the Wizards, Ish Smith and Rui Hachimura will need to separate themselves from the pack, and for the Nets it will be players like Caris LeVert and Jarrett Allen. While competitive prospects are dim for both teams, the spotlight will be on these lesser-regarded players in Orlando.