the wizards and Bradley Beal have agreed to a five-year, maximum-salary contract that will keep the star guard in DC, agent Mark Bartelstein tells Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (twitter link).
Beal’s new contract will pay him a $251,019,650 over the five years. The most a rival team could have offered would have been $186,100,778 over four years.
Beal declined his $36.4MM player option for 2022/23 in order to become an unrestricted free agent and maximize his earnings. He indicated in both March and May that he was leaning toward re-signing with the Wizards, so the news is expected.
The 29-year-old missed the final 33 games of the season because of an injured left wrist. He recently said the recovery process is going well and estimates that 80-90% of his range of motion has returned.
A three-time All-Star, Beal has been the subject of trade rumors for years but has remained loyal to Washington. Now that loyalty has paid off in a major way. He’ll get a chance to play a full season with Kristaps Porzingiswho was acquired at the February trade deadline, for the first time next season.
Beal finished second in the NBA in scoring in both ’19/20 and ’20/21, averaging more than 30 PPG in each season, but slumped a bit last year by his lofty standards, averaging 23.2, 4.7 RPG and 6.6 APG in 40 games (36 MPG). One potentially alarming statistic is that Beal’s three-point percentage has declined each of the past three seasons, with a career-low 30% in ’21/22, although his 6.6 assists per game represented a career-high.
Beal’s contract will pay him through his age 33 season, at which point he’ll become a free agent. Given his mediocre defense, it’s fair to question whether he’s worth more than $ 57MM in ’26 / 27, but there was never any doubt that he’d receive a max contract this summer.