There are not a whole lot of former Florida basketball players in the NBA currently but lately a few familiar names have made the news, including one-and-done guard Bradley Beal, who recently signed a massive contract extension with the Washington Wizards.
The third overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft — second-highest only to the legendary Neal Walk and tied with current Boston Celtic Al Horford —spent his first 10 years in the nation’s capital and cemented his standing there with a five-year, $251 million contract that will likely lock him in for the remainder of his career.
Or will it? CBS Sports’ staff writer Brad Botkin put together a look at the NBA’s free agency action after the opening day, including Beal’s monster extension. Botkin is not quite so sure the contract will tether the prolific scorer to the shores of the Potomac, as he explains in his excerpt on the former Gator below.
I still bet he gets traded before that contract expires, but by signing with Washington, which owns his Bird rights, he guaranteed himself a fifth guaranteed year, which will equate to about $57 million extra in his bank. That goes with him even if he does get traded. I’d bet good money that Beal winds up having his cake and eating it too, eventually ending up on a contender while also signing the biggest deal possible.
Beal is just a single season separated from a two-year stretch in which he averaged over 30 points a game in the NBA (30.5 ppg in 2019-20 and 31.3 ppg in 2020-21) — the first former Gators to achieve that feat. Unfortunately, he was outgunned by future Hall of Famers James Harden (34.3) in the former and Stephen Curry (32.0) in the latter season for the scoring title.
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