

The Washington Wizards exercised a $5.7 million fourth-year option on Bradley Beal’s contract. (Photo by Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images)

With a Halloween deadline approaching for NBA teams to exercise options on players entering the second and third years of a rookie-scale contract, the Washington Wizards have announced that the team has exercised a fourth-year contract option of $5.7 million on Bradley Beal and a third-year option of $4.6 million on Otto Porter Jr.

“Bradley and Otto are both big pieces of the core group of players that we will build around as we continue to improve our team,” Wizards General Manager Ernie Grunfeld said. “We look forward to them playing significant roles in our success both now and in the future.”

Currently sidelined with a fractured left wrist, the 21-year-old Beal, the third overall pick in the 2012 draft, is one of the NBA’s rising stars. He finished second on the team in scoring last season (17.1 points per game) and increased his production to a team-best 19.2 points per game in the team’s 11 postseason games while shooting 42.4 percent from three and averaging five rebounds and four assists in the playoffs.

But Beal has dealt with injuries during his brief professional career, including two different stress injuries to his right fibula. The Wizards say his wrist injury — a non-displaced fracture of the scaphoid bone — will sideline him approximately six weeks.

Injuries also derailed Porter’s rookie season. Selected third overall out of Georgetown the year after Beal, a hip flexor injury sidelined Porter for the entire preseason and the regular season’s first 20 games last year.

Porter, also 21 years old, will be relied upon to play a significant role for a Wizards team lacking depth on the wing to start the season following Trevor Ariza’s departure, Martell Webster’s offseason back surgery and Beal’s wrist fracture.