Suns Expect To Trade Or Buyout Bradley Beal

[RealGM Wiretap]

On a Sunday episode of The Kevin O'Connor Show, Phoenix Suns insider John Gambadoro gave some insight into the team's plans with Bradley Beal. The Suns are still planning to trade Beal. Failing that, Phoenix expects to work a buyout with Beal.

Beal is owed $53.6 million for 2025-26 and has a $57.1 million player option for 2026-27. A trade for Beal is complicated by his no-trade clause, which allows him to block any deals he doesn't like.

The Suns roster will be very guard-heavy after they complete the Kevin Durant trade with the Houston Rockets. Phoenix is acquiring Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks in that deal.

Via John Gambadoro/Arizona Sports 98.7

[the_process]

So to trade Beal somewhere that he would accept, you’re probably looking at MIA or WSH, right? Why not both!

MIA gets Beal and Smart
PHX gets Rozier, Robinson, Bey, and Holmes
WSH gets Wiggins, Larsson, Allen, and 29

Beal is more than all of Rozier, Robinson, and Bey; and Allen is more than Holmes. No aggregation.

[deeps6x]

How does buying him out help the team in ANY sense more then just having him come off the bench? He isn't a toxic player. He just isn't worth $55M. He might be worth $25M.

[M2J]

How does buying him out help the team in ANY sense more then just having him come off the bench? He isn't a toxic player. He just isn't worth $55M. He might be worth $25M.

Makes no sense to me. Except to try and black ball him for not playing ball at the deadline.

They should keep him and just play out the year or 2.... Sounds like the buy-out talk is a leak from the team to try and get him to forego his player option. He'd be an idiot to do that

[irish22022]

How does buying him out help the team in ANY sense more then just having him come off the bench? He isn't a toxic player. He just isn't worth $55M. He might be worth $25M.

Makes no sense to me. Except to try and black ball him for not playing ball at the deadline.

They should keep him and just play out the year or 2.... Sounds like the buy-out talk is a leak from the team to try and get him to forego his player option. He'd be an idiot to do that

Yup. Beal ain't bailing for less than 111 million. That's an insane buyout. He knows he's washed. You can't bully guys that already know they're done.

[kenwood3333]

During the last trade deadline Beal have indicated he wont waive NTC. Has he changed his mind?

[dubbmotta]

So to trade Beal somewhere that he would accept, you’re probably looking at MIA or WSH, right? Why not both!

MIA gets Beal and Smart
PHX gets Rozier, Robinson, Bey, and Holmes
WSH gets Wiggins, Larsson, Allen, and 29

Beal is more than all of Rozier, Robinson, and Bey; and Allen is more than Holmes. No aggregation.

Miami doesn’t want him. They said that last year, he doesn’t move the needle for them and his contract is the worst in the NBA right now. Atlanta is the sleeper team. They have a $25 mill trade exception and they have contracts that can make this work.

[Cassius]

So to trade Beal somewhere that he would accept, you’re probably looking at MIA or WSH, right? Why not both!

MIA gets Beal and Smart
PHX gets Rozier, Robinson, Bey, and Holmes
WSH gets Wiggins, Larsson, Allen, and 29

Beal is more than all of Rozier, Robinson, and Bey; and Allen is more than Holmes. No aggregation.

Miami doesn’t want him. They said that last year, he doesn’t move the needle for them and his contract is the worst in the NBA right now. Atlanta is the sleeper team. They have a $25 mill trade exception and they have contracts that can make this work.

Wouldn’t Beal just block Risacher and make it harder to pay Dyson Daniels in a year? Plus, Caris Levert played well for them and looks likely to be re-signed.

[the_process]

So to trade Beal somewhere that he would accept, you’re probably looking at MIA or WSH, right? Why not both!

MIA gets Beal and Smart
PHX gets Rozier, Robinson, Bey, and Holmes
WSH gets Wiggins, Larsson, Allen, and 29

Beal is more than all of Rozier, Robinson, and Bey; and Allen is more than Holmes. No aggregation.

Miami doesn’t want him. They said that last year, he doesn’t move the needle for them and his contract is the worst in the NBA right now. Atlanta is the sleeper team. They have a $25 mill trade exception and they have contracts that can make this work.

You can't combine exceptions and players last I checked.

[boston_fan_ct]

I do think beal has something left he is a good player not in a good fit on a terrible team contract. Hopefully the suns work something out for him and move him. Maybe they eat a good portion of his salary and move him to Boston for a second round pick as he is really close to Tatum and Boston could use him next year while Tatum recovers.

[gidget24]

No team is making that trade unless you are attaching 5-6 picks. The salary matching they would have to do to add him to their team means they are loosing pieces. He hasn't shown anything above $20M per year value in the past 2 seasons. It is probably the worst deal in the NBA right now.

Beal knows he has no chance of getting a contract at that value right now, at this point his value is probably closer to Westbrook and he will be stuck signing minimums to chase a ring of maybe the whole MLE on non tax teams. So the only way he agrees to a buyout is if he knows of a team taking him on and he is ring chasing and he values a ring more than the cash.

[gidget24]

I do think beal has something left he is a good player not in a good fit on a terrible team contract. Hopefully the suns work something out for him and move him. Maybe they eat a good portion of his salary and move him to Boston for a second round pick as he is really close to Tatum and Boston could use him next year while Tatum recovers.

If a team is way under the tax they can absorb his salary and send less back but for any team to be willing to do that first Beale would have to waive his no trade clause (unlikely) and second the suns would have to attach some incentive (picks) for that team to take on that salary, of which their picks are messy over the next 5 years because of trades for KD and Beale with BKN and WAS holding the picks outright or swap rights.

For the suns to retain salary they are then forcing themselves to operate under the cap by that amount for the next two years (Because you know Beal isn't opting out of $57M, That might be the full value of his next contract over 3-4 years). So they would be operating with realistically a $20+M handicap as they would need to take that at the very least in order for a team take on Beal's contract, not to mention also giving up picks like mentioned above.

[HotelVitale]

I do think beal has something left he is a good player not in a good fit on a terrible team contract. Hopefully the suns work something out for him and move him. Maybe they eat a good portion of his salary and move him to Boston for a second round pick as he is really close to Tatum and Boston could use him next year while Tatum recovers.

If a team is way under the tax they can absorb his salary and send less back but for any team to be willing to do that first Beale would have to waive his no trade clause (unlikely) and second the suns would have to attach some incentive (picks) for that team to take on that salary, of which their picks are messy over the next 5 years because of trades for KD and Beale with BKN and WAS holding the picks outright or swap rights.

For the suns to retain salary they are then forcing themselves to operate under the cap by that amount for the next two years (Because you know Beal isn't opting out of $57M, That might be the full value of his next contract over 3-4 years). So they would be operating with realistically a $20+M handicap as they would need to take that at the very least in order for a team take on Beal's contract, not to mention also giving up picks like mentioned above.

BOS is absolutely the last team about to take on that contract LOL, their offseason is defined by needing to shed salary and not take on a bunch of it.

There aren't too many teams who could get to a decent Beal deal that would do anything for PHX. I would maybe look at teams who could offer back some expirings (even if no one has immediate expirings) and might sweeten the deal a little bit to make that happen (nothing major, just 2nd rounders etc). For many teams Beal would be better value on court than the salary coming back so it's not crazy to think a trade would work out.

I wonder if this was leaked specifically because Beal was being a jerk about his NTC, though. I think he really doesn't want to go to a new meh team and uproot his life again so that would make sense. Problem is that PHX likely can't work out a deal to a small set of teams he'd be interested in joining, and it really doens't make sense for them to pay his whole contract in a buyout--esp since PHX wants to be good and compete next couple years.