Like pretty much everyone in a Wizards uniform, Bradley Beal has had a tough start to the season.
Washington’s No. 3 overall pick is shooting 15.4 percent, is finding it hard to get looks and has generally looked pretty overwhelmed as a starter. Like most rookies do. And Beal is far from the only Wizard looking that way, even a veteran like Trevor Ariza has look spun around.
Beal almost certainly will also get it together at some point. The kid is 19, he gets some slack. But right now he is getting a lot of advice on how to change things up — too much advice, he told CSNWashington.com.“You always have people who think they know the answers to everything,” Beal said. “People texting me and calling me. ‘You gotta do this; you gotta do this.’
“I have too many people in my ear, so I have to eliminate that and keep my circle small and focus on what the team needs to do and what I need to do. I know a lot of people want me to do this, this and this, but that’s not important to me. We’re trying to get wins. We’re 0-2 so we have to figure out how to get wins and the outside people need to stay on the outside.”
That right there is why I think Beal figures it out — that was a smart, mature response. You listen to your coach, a shooting coach, maybe one or two trusted advisors and that is it. Everything else is just noise.
It’s going to be a rough year of learning a lot of lessons the hard way for Beal, although someday when he’s on the court with John Wall and Nene he might find more room.
But he seems to have his head on right. And eventually the shots will start to fall.