Bradley Beal expected to miss 6-8 weeks with wrist injury

Bradley Beal injured his left wrist on Friday night during the Washington Wizards’ preseason loss to the Charlotte Hornets and is expected to be out 6-8 weeks following surgery to his wrist. J. Michael at CSNWashington.com has the details.

The team learned Saturday that Bradley Beal’s left wrist is indeed fractured and likely will be out 6-8 weeks, though that has yet to be confirmed until after the procedure, a person with knowledge of the situation confirmed to CSNwashington.com.

Beal’s agent, Mark Bartelstein, confirmed the report to CSN Washington:

“We’re still going through the evaluation process,” said Mark Bartelstein, Beal’s agent, to CSN. Beal told teammates, CSN also confirmed Saturday, that he thinks he will miss significant time.

NBA.com’s David Aldridge estimates Beal will miss six to eight weeks, although nothing is officially determined yet.

Wizards fear Bradley Beal has broken left wrist, could miss 6-8 weeks. Final determination on surgery in next 24-48 hours.

— David Aldridge (@daldridgetnt) October 11, 2014

This is a major blow for a Wizards team that has high expectations going into this season. Beal and backcourt partner John Wall had been getting some buzz in the recent “best backcourt in the NBA” debates after Washington made the playoffs for the first time since 2008 and advanced to the second round.

Beal, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2012 draft, averaged 17.1 points per game and shot 40.2 percent from three-point range in his second season with the Wizards. This isn’t the first injury of his young NBA career: he missed the end of his rookie season with a right leg injury and then missed nine games in November and December of last season with another injury to the same leg.

It’s unclear exactly how much time Beal will miss with this wrist injury, but Garrett Temple and Glen Rice, Jr. are likely to pick up most of the minutes alongside Wall in the backcourt while he is out. Hopefully, that isn’t too long. The Wizards are one of the Eastern Conference’s up-and-coming teams and it would be unfortunate if they were without one of their most important players for a long stretch.