Wizards G Bradley Beal remains "strangely underrated nationally," and his low profile has resulted in him ranking ninth in All-Star Game voting among all Eastern Conference guards, according to Dan Steinberg of the WASHINGTON POST. Beal has largely declined requests from both the Wizards and his agent "to use his social-media reach to ask fans for more votes." The one exception has been a "video starring real-life pandas -- one of his nicknames -- accompanied by various panda-power get-out-the-vote captions." Beal deemed that idea "corny enough not to offend." He said, "If it has anything that says, ‘Vote for me,’ I’m not posting it. I’m just not posting it. That’s definitely outside of my box. That’s, like, a few boxes over." Wizards C Marcin Gortat "suggested Beal could be more active on Twitter and Instagram, could try to get more endorsements and more commercials [and] could think more about marketing." Beal: "I would love to be in commercials. I feel like I have a face for it. I might have to hit up Nike, and be like, ‘Yo, just throw me in a commercial or two and let’s see what we can do'" (WASHINGTONPOST.com, 1/9).
