NBA Trade Rumors: The New York Knicks and Sacramento Kings are primed to join the Bradley Beal sweepstakes.
All of a sudden, Bradley Beal appears to be the talk of the NBA offseason. The Washington Wizards have not said they’re going to trade Beal, but the smoke surrounding the situation would say otherwise. And if he does find his way to the trade block, there will likely be a myriad of teams vying for his services.
An initial report linked the Miami Heat and Milwaukee Bucks as two teams that would be interested in Beal. There are now two more teams that have been linked to Beal. The New York Knicks, which shouldn’t come as a surprise, and the Sacramento Kings, who could be viewed as a big surprise, are two other teams primed to join the Beal sweepstakes this offseason.
With now four teams in pursuit of Beal, and likely a few others, this could set the stage for an eventual NBA Draft night. I’m not sure what the potential timeline is for a Beal trade, but you’d have to imagine if the Wizards do intend on trading him that they would want it done soon.
How will the Bradley Beal situation play out?
Over the next few days, Wizards management will have to make a firm decision on how they want to proceed further. And if they come to the conclusion that they are willing to move forward with trading Beal, I’d imagine they’d want to work to get that done fairly quickly. With an existing market already set, and assuming the front office has already done some due diligence on the subject, the Wizards wouldn’t have a hard time finding a deal.
The Knicks absolutely have the assets to find a path to a Beal deal. And if they wanted, they could probably outbid any other team that would be interested in targeting Beal. The Kings are interested but as Shams noted in this report, a pathway toward a deal could prove to be difficult.
In the end, though, none of this may matter. Beal has a no-trade clause and will practically be able to handpick where he wants to be traded to. And it may not matter what the Knicks or Kings are able to offer if that’s not a place he wants to be.
Either way, the next few days leading up to the NBA Draft should prove to be interesting. It seems like there’s a very real chance Beal is traded.