Bradley Beal is going to be connected to the Boston Celtics until either he ends up joining the squad or signing a super-max extension with the Washington Wizards. Even then, there still may be more rumors down the line.
There have been rumblings of a potential Beal and Celtics team up for years and that noise has been amplified by the fact that he's close with fellow St. Louis native Jayson Tatum.
Whether or not Beal eventually lands in Boston, the 2022 NBA Trade Deadline shouldn't be the time.
Beal has been steadfast in the fact that he prefers to stay in Washington long-term -- although that may be starting to change -- but if the Celtics were to pursue a trade, they likely would have to give up way too much for a player that they potentially could sign in free agency this upcoming offseason.
There's multiple variations of deals the Celtics could do to get the trade done, but it probably would do more harm than good. According to the ESPN NBA Trade Machine, a deal in which the Celtics send Al Horford and Dennis Schröder to the Washington for Beal would work money-wise, but the Wizards likely wouldn't take that even if Boston threw multiple first-round picks in the trade.
If Boston wanted to get a deal done before the Feb. 10 deadline, there's not doubt they would have to include Jaylen Brown, Robert Williams, Marcus Smart or some combination of this trio to even get the Wizards to the negotiating table.
Rather than doing this, they could find a way to trade a player like Horford for an expiring contract and shed salary heading into the offseason to make a bid for Beal and team him up with Tatum, Brown, Williams and Smart. Now that would be a solid starting lineup and even could compete for the top spot in the Eastern Conference.
It's not perfect science, but trading for Beal right now wouldn't be best for the team in the long run.
