Bradley Beal is no stranger to injuries. The Washington Wizards shooting guard has struggled to stay on the court throughout his young career. Beal recently came back from a stress reaction in his right fibula, an unfortunately common injury for the 22 year old, and spoke about restrictions that he may need as a result of his injury history.
The following from J. Michael of CSN Washington:
“Probably, especially with the way my body works,” Beal said about having his minutes capped at a maximum. “It doesn’t want to listen to me so I got to as much as I can take care of it, be smart about it moving forward through the rest of my career that’s probably something that’s going to happen every year.”
With Beal’s injury history is a long one, a person with knowledge of the situation told CSN a few weeks ago that number will be 35 minutes.
Generally speaking, all players should have some sort of soft minutes restriction to ensure that they can be healthy and have a long career. But the fact a 22 year old player is already speaking of such a thing as a certainty just shows how poorly his body has responded to the NBA game.
Beal has been a good player since entering the league and he seems to have rounded the corner in becoming the Wizards’ second best player. The Wizards would be wise to listen to his concerns about his health and play him limited minutes, especially in the regular season. In the future, the Wizards may look to shore up Beal’s position in order to survive by playing him fewer minutes. That will allow them to keep one of their franchise cornerstones healthy, hopefully for a long career.
