The Wizards are Bradley Beal’s team now

Never mind that Beal had logged his first career double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds. Never mind that the Wizards were in dire straits with John Wall sidelined because of a knee injury, or that Beal was far from the only player who had a chance to seal the win. Drew Hanlen, the guard’s trainer since Beal was 13, tried to encourage him, reminding Beal that this Wizards squad wasn’t a playoff contender and he should focus on improving his game.

At that, Beal balked.

“He was distraught, like, completely distraught,” Hanlen said in a phone interview last week. “He said: ‘No. That’s not the right way to go about this thing. I’m not a loser. I’m a winner.’ ”

There, in a moment of vulnerability, were the twin tenets of Beal’s basketball career laid bare: His goal is always to win, personal glory be damned. And he believes there is a “right way” to play this game — a rigid, personal definition that has shifted only slightly, and when absolutely necessary, in recent years.

They remain the principles that drive Beal, now 27, as he embarks on his first NBA season without Wall on his team. With the point guard off to the Houston Rockets in a blockbuster trade for Russell Westbrook, Beal is at last the highest player on the Wizards’ totem pole, despite the nine-time all-star Westbrook’s towering presence.

Beal’s prized position was hard earned after two seasons spent in the trenches without Wall, who was sidelined with an Achilles’ tendon injury. He has elevated his game to become a creative playmaker so versatile and effective that every team in the league called the Wizards this offseason asking about his availability, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation. He scored 30.5 points per game last season, second in the league, buttressing the offense as Washington sputtered to a 25-47 record.

Trading Wall reinforced the notion that Beal, who is under contract through the 2021-22 season, is the franchise cornerstone now. Reinforcements have arrived with Westbrook on board; Davis Bertans re-signed, and a corps of young players will be better, the Wizards believe, with an added year of experience.

But this new era of Beal’s career dawns with a new challenge. The measuring stick by which he wants to be judged is not personal success — spectacular numbers did nothing to earn him an all-NBA nod last season anyway — but wins. Beal’s ninth season is an opportunity to combine all he has acquired over the past two years and see how far it takes him.

“You always have to prove yourself. I’m big on that,” Beal said in a recent phone interview. “I kind of have a chip on my shoulder to … yeah, everyone knows what I can do individually. Everyone knows what Russ can do individually. But what can we do as a team? How can the Wizards get back into conversations of being a threat in the East? That’s all I’m worried about. My approach is, I’ve got my head down and I’m working. I’ve got my hard hat on; we’re getting it done. I’m a silent assassin — I can say that.”

The “silent” part of Beal’s self-description isn’t far from the truth. The two-time all-star is reserved by nature and only in the past few years has become a regularly vocal leader.

When Garrett Temple arrived in Washington in December 2012, he became fast friends with the team’s soft-spoken rookie who peppered vets with questions about basketball and life. It wasn’t until a few practices in that he finally saw Beal’s fiery side as Wall and Beal exchanged trash talk during a scrimmage.

“It was kind of like: ‘Okay. Okay, Brad! Bet,’ ” Temple said in a phone interview last week. “I think that’s when I realized, he obviously has talent, but he’s got some dog in him, too. He might’ve said something like, ‘Don’t let this nice s— fool you.’ … He should get that as a tattoo.”

Beal had always welcomed the shine and responsibility that came with his talent, for which he was named the Gatorade national player of the year in 2011 and went No. 3 in the NBA draft after one season at Florida. But on the court, he was more team-oriented than most prodigious shooters. He still shirks the unofficial rule that a team’s best player should be making the big shot in the crucial moments.

During Washington’s game in London in 2019, he found Thomas Bryant for the game-winning shot rather than take it himself. He did the same thing a year later at home against the Brooklyn Nets, lasering the ball across the court to new teammate Jerome Robinson, who hit a three-pointer to seal a win.

“I remember that. They double-teamed me,” Beal said. “They sent two men at the top of the key. And I easily could’ve forced it and shot over two people, but he was wide-a– open, so. I mean, that’s why everybody’s out there.”

Both of those moments qualify as what Beal calls the sensible basketball play — the unglamorous decision dictated by the defense rather than his status on the roster. Those plays are a huge part of Beal’s dedication to playing “the right way.”

He pushed back on Wizards Coach Scott Brooks and Hanlen, his trainer, when the pair first tried to get Beal to drastically increase the number of three-pointers he took to keep up with league trends.

In response to their pleadings, Beal would reel off a list of dominant NBA champions — Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, LeBron James — who had won titles from the midrange or post. Only Stephen Curry, he argued, had won a title in recent years by jacking up threes. When Hanlen first told Beal he needed to learn how to draw more fouls, the guard dismissed the notion with one sentence: “That’s bad basketball.”

Beal eventually embraced those elements of the game when he saw how they helped the Wizards win. He set the franchise record for three-pointers made in a season (223) in 2016-17, when Washington pushed the Boston Celtics to seven games in the second round of the playoffs.

“I’ve grown into that more aggressive, more selfish basketball at times,” Beal said.

Said Brooks, in a videoconference last week, “I would use the term, ‘playing with more force.’ ”

Beal complemented his mental adjustment by transforming himself from a pure shooter into a combo guard who can facilitate as necessary. In the summer of 2017, before Beal’s first all-star season, he and Hanlen focused on ballhandling, finishing at the rim and creating space — all of the main components necessary for creating your own shots. The summer after that, they graduated from creating to playmaking and from there have worked to manipulate small aspects of Beal’s game, from tightening footwork to adding shots, all to increase his scoring capabilities.

Beal’s confidence in his offseason work grew when Brooks started putting the ball in his hands more on the pick and roll, and it soared when Wall was sidelined and Beal accepted the starring role.

“The fact that John wasn’t there the last two years forced Brad to be more aggressive — because we know he’s laid-back — and to play with the ball in his hands more,” Temple said. “At the end of the day, you can do as many drills as you want, and it’s still nothing like when the lights are on and you’re facing double teams and their scouting report is all about getting the ball out of your hands past half court. Being able to find counters to all those things, that comes throughout the season. They needed him to do that.”

Over the course of two years, Beal got better at operating without Wall on the court. But leading the team alone never got easier.

“I know he can say the same because he’s played without me,” Beal said, “but it was eye-opening. You definitely can’t get it done by yourself.”

After weeks of drama that included trade talks leaking and Wall demanding to be moved out of Washington, the deal was official and the man Beal had referred to as his big brother earlier in his career told Beal he has the keys to the franchise now.

It was a neat way to close one chapter of a long, nuanced relationship. Beal deeply appreciated Wall’s words, even if they felt like a formality by the time he officially said goodbye.

“It was tough, because of the situation we were already in,” Beal said, referring to the scuttlebutt surrounding the trade. “He embodied the city; he brought it back to some relevance. I was happy to be a part of that for a long time, and he showed me how to lead and how to be a true franchise guy. It meant a lot. But it was also hurtful because it was like, ‘Okay, this is the end.’ ”

Beal is moving forward with a new relationship to forge with Westbrook, the famously ball-dominant guard who has nonetheless said twice now that his job with the Wizards is to make Beal’s life easier. The two share a similarly serious approach to basketball and, when Westbrook speaks in practice, Beal is laid-back enough — and has enough respect for the point guard’s résumé — that he sits back and listens. Beal said Westbrook does the same for him.

“I guess we don’t butt heads, I could say. We don’t really butt heads at all,” Beal said. “… I just want to go out there and play basketball, do it at a high level, put us in a position to win. Russ does that. He helps us. I’m not saying I wasn’t excited about it, but at the same time, I just want to win, and he has the same mind-set. He’s not super geeked like: ‘I’m here! I’m here! I’m here!’ He’s like, ‘Okay, let’s get to work.’ Same mentality. I think that’s something that we needed.”