Bradley Beal Fantasy News and Statistics

Bradley Beal had many sports options while growing up in St. Louis. He could have chosen the city’s unofficial sport of baseball, or he could have gone the route of his four brothers and played football. However, Beal chose to pick up a basketball, and the decision has certainly paid off. He took a big step forward last season with the Washington Wizards and is on the verge of stardom in the NBA.

Long before Beal became one of the city’s greatest athletes, he was friends with St. Louis’ greatest rapper. Nelly was a family friend of the Beals, and he used to walk the future Wizard to grade school. Beal excelled not only in the classroom but on the hardwood as well, and he was named the 2011 Gatorade Player of the Year as a high school senior. Despite local interest from Missouri and Kansas, Beal headed to the SEC and joined Billy Donovan at the University of Florida.

In Gainesville, Beal was a starter from day one and helped Florida reach its second straight Elite Eight. This wasn’t one of Donovan’s most-talented teams and featured only one other player who would play in the NBA, so Beal received much of the credit for Florida’s success. After making first-team All-SEC, he declared for the 2012 NBA Draft where he was expected to be a top-10 pick. He ended up going third overall to the Wizards and was paired with John Wall, who went first overall two years earlier.

As the third-youngest player in the NBA during the 2012-13 season, Beal experienced many of the ups and downs expected of a 19-year-old rookie. He started opening night and was the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month in December 2012 and January 2013. But then ankle and leg injuries knocked him out of the lineup, and he didn’t regain his starting role when he came back. In April, the team announced that lingering issues from Beal’s injuries would keep him out for the remainder of the season. Despite missing 26 games due to injury, Beal was still an All-Rookie first-team selection.

Various nicks and bruises continued to limit Beal over the next three seasons as he missed a combined 55 games due to injuries. The frequency of the setbacks had many people calling Beal the 6-foot-4 version of Anthony Davis due to his assortment of ailments. But Beal was still able to perform—especially when it mattered most. Through the 2015-16 season, he averaged 16.0 points per game in the regular season, but that average jumped to 21.2 in the postseason.

The Wizards were praying that Beal’s postseason performance would translate to the regular season when they signed him to a $127 million deal prior to the 2016-17 campaign. Their prayers were answered when Beal not only averaged a career-high of 23.1 points per contest but also played in a career-high 77 games. Beal and Wall led the Wizards to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals, which was the furthest the Bullets/Wizards franchise had advanced since 1979.

Beal enters the 2017-18 season trending up as the Wizards do as a team. You could make the case that he’s the best guard in the NBA under the age of 25 and should only get better. With the Eastern Conference losing many star players this offseason, it would come somewhat of a shock if Beal doesn’t make his first All-Star team in 2018.