Wizards Owner Sends Shots at Suns Guard Bradley Beal

The former Wizards guard didn't exactly get words of praise from his former owner.

Suns guard Bradley Beal jokes at the end of practice during practice at the Verizon 5G Performance Center in Phoenix on Oct. 1, 2024. / Patrick Breen/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Washington Wizards owner Ted Leonsis wasn't a fan of Phoenix Suns guard Bradley Beal and comments made from his former player about a potential move of the Wizards out of Washington D.C..

Beal - who waived his no-trade clause from Washington and forced his way to the Suns last summer - offered the following earlier this year when news of a plan to move the Wizards out of the area were made public before ultimately being turned down.

“D.C., I’m here with you,” Beal said to Marc J. Spears. “I’m with you all. There is no moving to Virginia. What is that, [Wizards owner] Ted [Leonsis]? We love you to death. We understand what you want to do and are trying to do. But you can’t take the team out of D.C. It’s Chocolate City. As a league, we need it. It has to stay in D.C. now. The money? Listen, it’s out of my hands and out of my control. I ain’t got nothing to do with that. Hopefully [Washington] mayor [Muriel] Bowser can work something out with you.

“I hope the team stays. It’s good for the city. It creates a little bit of a problem, just my personal opinion, if it moves to Virginia. It’s probably similar to how people felt when [the Washington Commanders] moved to Maryland. It is a tough thing. We just got to get everybody back to D.C. just rebuild RFK Stadium, rebuild Cap One (Capital One Arena). Keep it in the city. We can make it happen and they can make happen.”

A deal was later struck for the Wizards to stay in their current home through 2050, though Leonsis had some recent choice words for his former player.

“Everyone has their problems,” said Leonsis to MoCo Media.

“I’ll use, as an example, Bradley Beal. He was one of our [Wizards] players. He had a no-trade contract, and he wanted to be traded. He went to Phoenix. When we announced we were moving, he found it necessary to get online and say, ‘You’re making a big mistake. You shouldn’t be moving.’

“I thought that was gratuitous, but I didn’t say anything,” Leonsis went on. “[Phoenix] made the playoffs and got swept in the first round. And there’s a lot of criticism of Bradley Beal. That’s how life is, right? You can criticize. Can you take the criticism back? It’s the world we live in.”