{"id":188361,"date":"2025-07-22T22:59:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T22:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/188361\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T22:59:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T22:59:13","slug":"former-suns-and-a-jersey-number-with-bradley-beal-will-cp3-need-new-nickname","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/188361\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Suns and a jersey number: With Bradley Beal, will CP3 need new nickname?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A pair of former <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/phoenix-suns\/21\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Phoenix Suns;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Phoenix Suns<\/a> have settled a potentially contentious subject: Who will wear No. 3 for the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/los-angeles-clippers\/12\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Los Angeles Clippers;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Los Angeles Clippers<\/a>? Hint: CP3 will not need to change his nickname.<\/p>\n<p>Point guard Chris Paul, who directed the Suns&#8217; 2021 NBA Finals team, has worn the number his entire 20-year career.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Bradley Beal, <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/suns-complete-buyout-bradley-beal-175115227.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:recently bought out by the Suns;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recently bought out by the Suns<\/a> after an underwhelming two-year stay in the Valley, also has known no other number in his career. The Clippers and Beal agreed to a two-year, $11 million deal with a player option for the second season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce Brad heard it\u2019s a possibility Chris was coming, he said, \u2018I want to give him my number,\u2019 and I don\u2019t even think Chris knows this yet,&#8221; said Lawrence Frank, the Clippers&#8217; president of basketball operations, in a conference call with reporters. &#8220;It\u2019s awesome that Brad made such a great gesture like that.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;&#8230; Brad is such a great guy and an awesome teammate. &#8230; He knows what that jersey means to Chris. There&#8217;s a reason why he&#8217;s CP3.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Beal hasn&#8217;t played more than 60 games since the 2018-19 season, while Paul played a full 82 games last season with the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/san-antonio-spurs\/24\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:San Antonio Spurs;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">San Antonio Spurs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Frank said it was not yet decided what number Beal would wear this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Support local journalism: Subscribe to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/cm.azcentral.com\/specialoffer?gps-source=CPNEWS&amp;utm_medium=onsite&amp;utm_source=TAGLINE&amp;utm_campaign=NEWSROOM&amp;utm_content=JEREMYCLUFF\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:azcentral.com;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">azcentral.com<\/a>\u00a0today.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azcentral.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/suns\/2025\/07\/22\/bradley-beal-chris-paul-clippers-no-3-jersey\/85329533007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Who will wear No. 3 in LA? Ex-Suns Bradley Beal, Chris Paul know;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Who will wear No. 3 in LA? Ex-Suns Bradley Beal, Chris Paul know<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pair of former Phoenix Suns have settled a potentially contentious subject: Who will wear No. 3 for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3791],"tags":[7,3086,2596,4902,135,6,2065,472,4045,474,604],"class_list":{"0":"post-188361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix-suns","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bradley-beal","10":"tag-chris-paul","11":"tag-lawrence-frank","12":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-phoenix","15":"tag-phoenix-suns","16":"tag-phoenixsuns","17":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","18":"tag-suns"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114899371013569520","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}