Sixers likely out on Bradley Beal, expected to re-sign with Wizards

The free agency period is getting set to begin in a few days as the expected start time for free agency is June 30 at 6 p.m. EST. That is when teams can begin to negotiate with free agents and start agreeing to deals and such.

The Philadelphia 76ers have been a team known to want to add a third star to Joel Embiid and James Harden and it has been assumed that the third star they are targeting is Bradley Beal. Former NBA champion Andrew Bogut suggested on his podcast during the 2021-22 season that Beal wants to join Philadelphia and form a Big 3 there.

However, per ESPN’s Kevin Pelton and Adrian Wojnarowski, it appears that Beal is going to decline his player option only to sign for the long haul to remain with the Washington Wizards and stay in D.C:

In Beal’s case, a $36.4 million player option is much more certain to be declined. Even if Beal simply re-signs with the Wizards, he can increase his 2022-23 salary to the projected max of $42.7 million. Per Wojnarowski, Bradley Beal is very likely to decline the option and re-sign with Washington on a five-year deal worth a projected $248 million that would take him through age 33.

An important note here is that the Sixers never really had the cap space to pry Beal away from the Wizards and that the only way to acquire him would be by trade anyway, but if he does re-sign with Washington, then a trade can’t happen until six months after he signs his contract. So somewhere around Jan. 15 is when he would be eligible to be traded.

Philadelphia could offer Washington a combination of Tobias Harris and Tyrese Maxey to get it done. Harris would have to go in order to make the money work and Maxey would be the value that the Wizards would look for in a Beal deal. Either way, it appears at this point, that a Beal acquisition for Philadelphia is unlikely.

This post originally appeared on Sixers Wire! Follow us on Facebook!