Bradley Beal To The Clippers Is PERFECT…

Bradley Beal To The Clippers Is PERFECT…

Bradley Beal is finally no longer a member of the Phoenix Suns. We’ve been talking about trade stuff for him for a long time and now they’ve just decided they’re better off without him in general. They have bought out Bradley Beal. This has been rumored for a little while and his destination has been rumored for a little while. He’s going to be on the LA Clippers. There’s a lot of different angles for this, but I want to talk first about Phoenix because it’s pretty crazy for them to be in the situation that they are in here with Bradley Beal because it’s really uncommon for players with this large of a salary to just get bought out because typically you’re able to attach some kind of pick to the guy or someone around the league wants him. And we just saw this with Damen Lillard getting his contract stretched and waved, which is what Phoenix is doing here. They’re just buying him out first. But that was because Damen Lillard tore his Achilles. If he didn’t tear his Achilles, the Bucks either would have kept him or they would have tried to find a suitor via trade. The fact that Beal was at least moderately healthy in the offseason. Obviously didn’t have a great season health-wise, but they still couldn’t find value for him tells you a lot about two things. One, his value around the league in general, and two, more importantly, how limited it was in terms of a trademark for him because of the no trade clause. So, Phoenix at this point just decided they’d rather just have Bradley Beal not on the team. They’d rather not pay for his contract and send him elsewhere. And it gives them a little bit of flexibility, but it’s a little bit misleading exactly how much flexibility it gives them. And at this point, the Suns just wanted him to go elsewhere. There was a 0% chance that Bradley Beal was going to be on the opening night roster for the Phoenix Suns. And this was always kind of the direction that we were heading in. It’s pretty crazy. It’s pretty unprecedented. They’re going to have a bunch of money on their cap over the next couple of seasons as a result of waving and stretching his contract. And obviously, that has all kinds of long-term implications for the Suns, a Suns team that isn’t in that great of a spot in the first place. They just signed Deon Booker to this massive contract extension. So, at least he’s going to be around, but they don’t have a ton of future picks. They don’t have really that great of a young core other than Jaylen Greener, they just traded for, who I’m not a huge fan of, obviously Malawatch in the draft, but there’s not a whole lot of positive things happening in Phoenix. And so, it’s pretty incredible that they just made the choice that they’d rather just not have Bradley Beal around the team. For the Clippers, this is something that we’ve been talking about pretty much since they traded away Norm Powell. It never really made sense to me that trade in a vacuum without also accounting for them adding Bradley Beal. But it seemed like that was imminent at the time of the trade and then it cooled off a little bit and now all of a sudden yes it does make a lot of sense that they swapped out someone who was really good for them last year, Norm Powell for John Collins for two reasons. One because they knew that they were going to eventually get Bradley Be at least they hope that they would. So swapping out Norm Powell in the back court to give them more front court depth with John Collins and then add Bradley Beal in Norm Powell’s place makes sense. And two, they didn’t want to deal with a contract extension with Norm Powell. So, they just got rid of them so they wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore. They didn’t want to add long-term money. They want to be flexible in future offseasons. And Beal accomplishes that goal as well. I think this is a really interesting free agency scenario for the Clippers in the league in general in 2026 depending on how Bradley Beal plays because he’s going to be an unrestricted free agent. He’s going to be someone that a lot of teams would potentially want depending on how good his season is this year. And there’s going to be a bunch of teams around the league, certainly more than there were this past offseason, that actually are going to have cap space. And we might see Bradley Beal on a pretty big contract again next year. Not $50 million a year big, but certainly bigger than what the Clippers have signed him for. And this is obviously a huge win for the Clippers. Bradley Beal’s reputation around the league certainly has suffered over the last handful of years. But when he plays, which I know is a big deal, the injury stuff, the durability stuff, he’s a really good offensive player. Like Bradley Beal’s not someone that’s averaging like eight points a game and shooting 30% from three. He was good for the Suns last year, at least by the numbers. Now, there were certainly some times where the effort wasn’t great. He’s never been good defensively, but in a situation where he is committed to playing the right way, he is incredibly valuable for a Clippers team that not only needs his spot, but can use him in multiple different ways. I’m assuming that Bradley Beal is going to start for the LA Clippers because given the other suitors that were involved, teams like Milwaukee that could have offered a really large role for him. I can’t imagine that he looked at the situation with the Clippers and decided to go there amongst all of his other suitors if they didn’t say, “Hey, you’re going to start for us.” I can’t imagine the Clippers going to Bradley Be and saying, “Hey, you’re going to come off the bench so that you can run the second unit while James Harden sits.” And then Bradley V is like, “Yep, that’s the situation I want to go to. This is a guy that doesn’t want to come off the bench. And even though there are lineups in which I think it would make a lot of sense, I’m presuming they’re just going to put him into that starting lineup and it’s going to be Harden, Beal, Kawaii, and then whatever they do with their front court alongside Zubots. And that is a really, really interesting team. And the Clippers are putting together a roster that looks more and more scary by the week for the rest of the Western Conference. A team that has pivoted away from the Paul George situation. Paul George, who just had another procedure on his knee, by the way, and has just been a complete disaster in Philadelphia, and has somehow turned their team, not only into a team last year that was really good when Kawhai played and looked like a real threat going into the postseason, but now has even improved this year while maintaining most of, if not all of their flexibility for future offseasons. This has been a fantastic offseason for the Clippers, and obviously bringing in Beal was a big part of that plan once we saw the way they maneuvered around the Norm Powell situation. Now, obviously, there’s no guarantee that this works with Bradley Beal, and there’s a scenario here. We get partway through the year and things look pretty similar to the way they did in Phoenix where maybe the coaching staff isn’t enamored with his effort. Maybe it’s just one of those things where they don’t think it all fits together with Kawwai and Harden all playing together in the starting lineup. And I could see a scenario where the Clippers are like, you know what, we do need Bradley Beal to come off the bench. We need Chris Dunn in the starting lineup as a defender and we need some other guys to kind of work around that and then we’ll have Bradley Beal come off the bench. I don’t think that’s out of the question for that to happen mid-season. And I would presume that the Clippers have some kind of a plan for that. But again, given that he had a lot of options and really large roles to potentially go and play on these other teams because he’s such a good value at $5 million a year, I’d imagine that that is only kind of the like pull the lever for emergency break glass in case of emergency scenario uh for the Clippers as Bradley Beiel coming off the bench. Overall though, it is crazy that this happened two times in the same offseason. Damen Lillard and Bradley Beal both on massive contracts with multiple seasons remaining just getting waved and stretched from their teams and the and the situations obviously are unique not only with Damen Lillard’s Achilles injury but also with Bradley Beiel’s just unwillingness to wave his no trade clause in any scenario in Phoenix cuz he wants to collect his full paycheck and he wants to stay on a team that’s at least semi-contending or he want to be bought out get most of his money and then get to go where he wanted to and that’s within his rights that’s why the no trade clause is there that’s why the Wizards for whatever reason gave it to him and he’s certainly able to do that. But this is just such a unique scenario. And again, I think people have gotten a little bit too far on one end of the spectrum for Bradley Beal in terms of just thinking that he’s now all of a sudden bad at basketball. He’s not an all-star level player anymore, but I’m anticipating him making a really strong positive contribution for this Clippers team now that he’s out of the situation in Phoenix. He’s never necessarily been this super high effort player in the beginning of his career anyway. But in Phoenix, I I don’t really blame you if you’re just kind of over a very toxic situation there. It wasn’t just him. KD Booker, all these guys had moments where they just looked like they did not want to be there. It’s one of the most dysfunctional organizations in the league over the last couple of seasons. And now removed from that, I could see a real comeback story here for Beal uh in LA. But really, I think the most interesting part of this for me is two things. one where the Clippers ultimately end up now within a very very tough Western Conference. A conference that is rising to try and meet the expectation that the Oklahoma City Thunder have now set. Denver got much, much better this offseason. I like some of the things that Minnesota has been able to do, will continue to do with some of their flexibility. Obviously, the Rockets are massive winners this offseason as well. They’ve got a super deep team and quietly the Clippers are putting together a team that could theoretically compete with all of those. But I’m not sure that them or any of the other teams in the conference are quite on the level of a team like Oklahoma City. And the other part of this that is interesting to me is a scenario in which we go into the summer of 2026 and the Clippers and Beal have to decide on two things. Let’s just say that Beal has a good season. Let’s say averages 18 points a game, shoots close to 40% from three and all of a sudden Bradley Beal is an asset again on the free agency market. Bo has to decide if he really wants to leave a situation LA that looks very promising for him. And it’s clear that he’s not someone that wants to jump around teams a ton. He stayed in Washington too long. He stayed in Phoenix too long. He doesn’t want to jump around all over the place. And the Clippers are going to have to decide in that scenario. How willing are they to give up some of their future flexibility that they’ve clearly prioritized in the 26, but more importantly 2027 off seasonasons in order to retain a player in Beiel that might be really important for them a year from now in the 2026 offseason. There’s really only two ways this can go. Beiel’s good and he signs a nice new contract or he’s bad and he’s just kind of a minimum, you know, mid-level exception kind of buyout player essentially for the rest of his career. And that to me is the most interesting part of this. Obviously, there’s stuff on the floor that they’re going to have to figure out. Is he going to come off the bench? How does him and Harden work together, I think ultimately in any scenario for the Clippers this off seasonason where you can trade Norm Powell for John Collins and sign Bradley Beal. You do that a 100 times out of 100. It is an unbelievable thing they’ve been able to do given how expensive their roster was already, not even accounting for the fact that they let Paul George go. Like, this is a roster that has a bunch of big names and a bunch of big contracts. And so, to be able to have the flexibility to do this in the first place is obviously a win. But to me, what happens next off seasonason, not only with Beal, but also with the Clippers, is really, really interesting and sets the Clippers up to be one of the most interesting teams, not only of the entire season, but maybe the rest of the offseason and going into next off season as well. But mostly, I’m just glad that we have a resolution to the Bradley Beal situation. And frankly, I’m glad that it happened today because I just got back from Vegas and Summer League yesterday.

Bradley Beal has agreed to a contract buyout with the Phoenix Suns and plans to join the… Los Angeles Clippers

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