Washington Wizards general manager Ernie Grunfeld and vice president of basketball operations Tommy Sheppard reached out to shooting guard Bradley Beal before pulling the trigger on the trade which brought Austin Rivers to the team from the Los Angeles Clippers.
Rivers and Beal were rivals in high school and the Wizards' brass wanted to make sure Beal was on board with the move. Beal signed off on the trade and appreciated the front office reaching out to him.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, I understand it. And I definitely appreciate you guys asking me first,' ” Beal told Chris Hughes of NBC Sports Washington. “All of us, the AAU kids, we always hated Austin because we felt like he had an unfair advantage.
“Your dad, [Doc Rivers], was an NBA coach, you've been able to work out with Paul Pierce and [Kevin Garnett] and Ray Allen and all that. We felt like you had the upper hand. He had the NBA socks when we were playing. We were thinking about all of this stuff. You had access to all this stuff and we didn't. We were kind of envious of it. His game was like super far advanced from everybody else; his handle, his floater, everything. In a way, we were like, ‘Man, this dude.' We were kind of jealous of him for a little bit.”
Beal and Rivers were the two best guards in the 2011 high school class. They never hated each other, but they definitely weren't friends. They had intense battles on the AAU circuit and used to talk a lot of smack on the court. So even though that was seven years ago, Grunfeld and Sheppard needed to be 100 percent sure Beal and Rivers still didn't have beef. The last thing the Wizards needed was more locker room issues.
Rivers recalls the gyms being packed to watch him and Beal play. He also remembers all the hate which was directed his way because of who his dad was.
“Everyone was coming at my neck because I had everything,” Rivers said. “In high school, that s— was definitely a thing and then I became the No. 1 player, so I had the juice back then. S—, I've still got it. First of all, he wasn't around as much. Secondly, you had to earn everything.”
The Wizards traded big man Marcin Gortat to Los Angeles to acquire Rivers. The former Duke star averaged a career high 15.1 points per game last season and is slated to make $12.6 million in 2018-19. The 26-year-old will be an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2019.
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