Bradley Beal says he is getting ‘close’ to return

For five games, Bradley Beal has watched the Wizards morph into a team trying to resurface from a rut. He’s been stuck in suits and on sidelines because of a mild stress fracture in his lower right leg, a leg he has injured in the past.

The Wizards’ second-leading scorer recently went though drills: running, jumping some movement. He’s spent most of his time since the injury was discovered Dec. 11 lifting weights and being evaluated. Doctors are looking at everything from his running mechanics to style of shoe.

“I’ve been wearing Nikes all my life and I’ve been running all my life,” Beal said Monday. “It’s kind of like, where do you draw the line. Why is it happening all of a sudden?”

There is no definitive timetable for Beal’s return to the struggling Wizards. He said he did not have soreness following the drills. The pain in his big toe — possibly a contributing cause to the stress reaction when he compensated for it — is gone. Beal thinks his return is not far off.

“I think I’m close,” Beal said. “How close I am, I have no idea.”

The concern for the Wizards, and Beal, is that the 21-year-old has injured his lower right fibula before. In early April of Beal’s rookie season, the Wizards shut him down because of a stress injury to his lower right fibula. He did not resume basketball activities until August of that year. Beal then missed nine games early in the following season because of another fibula issue, though the problem was in a different spot.

The repeat of the injury has him wondering about his future.

“Yes, I am,” Beal said. “Yes and no. No, because I feel like I just want to play basketball. That’s all I want to do. At the same time, in order for me to play basketball for a long time, I have to take care of myself. It’s difficult because you want to help the team out immediately, but at the same time, you want to look out for yourself and your benefit and your career for a long time. It’s a matter of just doing both, but being smart about the situation.”