Bradley Beal didn’t play on Monday night when the Wizards lost a close one with the Hawks as he deals with a hamstring injury, but he still found himself as a hot topic of conversation in the NBA space. Beal and Stephen Curry are locked in a tight race for the NBA’s scoring title this season, with Curry holding a half-point per game lead on Beal, but Curry’s teammate Kent Bazemore interjected himself into their friendly competition and drew quite the response from Beal.
Bazemore joked on Monday morning that guys are “hurting hamstrings” trying to keep pace with Steph, which unsurprisingly ticked off Beal, who ripped Bazemore on Twitter while the Warriors were playing the Jazz. Afterwards, Bazemore seemed ready to just be done with the whole thing, saying “I guess we can’t joke anymore,” before saying he won’t be getting into it with Beal on Twitter. While he acted surprised it blew up, Bazemore should know that jokes about injuries don’t fly and can be seen as something crossing the line.
On Tuesday morning, Beal talked to LaJethro Jenkins of Yahoo Sports about the situation and made sure to note it wasn’t anything to do with Steph or even him being upset Bazemore is on the side of his teammate. His issue lies with Baze going at him over an injury, which Beal feels is uncalled for — and that Baze said he was “chasing” Curry, which Beal also disagrees strongly with.
Just rapped with Bradley Beal about Bazemore’s comments and why he felt the need to let Baze know exactly what time it was. pic.twitter.com/1J1KeN3n1j
— 🎄Black Big Lebowski🎄 (@LaJethroJenkins) May 11, 2021
“It’s nothin against Steph. I’m gonna nip that now,” Beal said. “To me it was about — I’m not sitting here debating whose side you should choose. Obviously you should be on your teammates side, but just keep it that. Keep it hoops, don’t bring my injury into it or me into it. My goals and why I go hoop and what I’m focused on is totally different. I could care less about people saying, ‘Ah it’s a close race.’ I don’t really care about that. I’m here to hoop. Everybody knows I can score, I’ve been doing this for the last couple years. So it’s nothin new, I’m not chasing nothin. So for me, I just want to keep it that. Just keep it hoops, stay over there, I didn’t say anything, I didn’t do anything so that’s all my part was.”
He obviously wanted to make it clear he wasn’t trying to beef with Steph and make this a whole thing, but he took issue with the way Baze went about backing his teammate by bringing his injury into it and the insinuation that he’s going out of his way to chase Curry for the scoring title. This should be the end of all of this, but we now know what it takes to have Bradley Beal torch another player on Twitter.
