Bradley Beal Thanks Wizards, Fans in Letter After Trade to Suns: 'It's Bittersweet'

Bradley Beal will play for the Phoenix Suns during the upcoming season but not before he thanked the Washington Wizards and their fans for supporting him for 11 seasons.

Beal wrote a letter to the fans and organization in The Players' Tribune and said "it' bittersweet" to be traded.

"I don't like how 'goodbye' sounds, so let's just say 'see you later," he added.

The shooting guard also said, "I hope you'll always consider me one of your own," and added, "You spend over a decade somewhere, and that place becomes more than just the team you play for. It becomes a part of you."

Washington selected the University of Florida product with the No. 3 overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft. During his time with the team, he was a three-time All-Star and member of the 2020-21 All-NBA Third Team.

He averaged 22.1 points, 4.3 assists, 4.1 rebounds and 1.1 steals per game while shooting 46 percent from the field and 37.2 percent from deep during his tenure in the nation's capital.

Yet the Wizards traded him, Isaiah Todd and Jordan Goodwin to the Suns for six second-round draft picks, four first-round pick swaps, Landry Shamet and Chris Paul, who has since been traded to the Golden State Warriors.

Washington is in rebuilding mode, although that wasn't always the case during Beal's time with the team.

The Wizards made the playoffs five times and advanced to the second round in 2014, 2015 and 2017. That 2017 season included a dramatic second-round loss to the Boston Celtics that lasted seven games, but Beal reflected on a moment he shared with John Wall ahead of Washington's one-point win at home in Game 6:

"I can still picture the look on John's face, before Game 6 against the Celtics in 2017, as we were talking to each other in warmups. We didn't even need to be talking—that's how much we were on the same page about that game. It's like we knew how anything could happen in a Game 7 in Boston, and we almost could live with that … but we weren't losing TONIGHT. You know what I mean? It was like, Tonight we're putting DC on our back. Memories like those will stay with me forever."

He is now entering a different stage of his career where the expectation will be championship.

After all, he will be teammates with Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton as part of a stacked starting lineup, and anything less than a run to the Larry O'Brien Trophy will be seen as a disappointment for the win-now team.

Yet no matter what happens in Phoenix, Washington will clearly always remain dear to Beal's heart given the letter he wrote.