Why it’s only getting more difficult for the Phoenix Suns to move Bradley Beal

Why it’s only getting more difficult for the Phoenix Suns to move Bradley Beal

All right, it’s Wolf and Luke on a Tuesday. It’s July 1st. We’re into July. Paul Calvesi is in for Wolf. I feel like I, you know, full disclosure, I I should disclose that um I I told Maloney um that, you know, I I tried to pull an Ace Bailey. Basically, I just said, “I’m not coming in. I don’t want to come here. Uh I don’t want to fill in with Wolf anymore.” And then she did an end round. She said, “Well, guess what? You are coming in. You’re going to fill in with Luke.” Of course, I was agreeable and amendable to that.
She got you.
Yeah. But the the ace Bailey just want to let it be known, you know. Absolutely. Under no circumstances should I be drafted to go ahead and play alongside Ron Wolfley. Well, if you pull the Ace Bailey, then all of a sudden you have to have kind of like new representation that’s all of a sudden like, what are you talking about? Ace always wanted to play for the Jazz. See, he loves Utah.
He showed up in Utah, or at least he said he’s going to show up. Did you see the quote? His quote was, “Yeah, I have to trust my process.”
The the Sixers was trust the process.
That didn’t work.
Ace Bailey is trust my process. So, he’s innovative, new, and innovative. I I respect that. That should be his nickname. Who was this? There was a sixer whose nickname was the process. His ace Bailey should be my process.
My process should be his nickname.
There you go. Get that to his agent.
Uh I don’t know who his agent is. That’s right.
He doesn’t have one. Or he does.
He should if whoever that guy was, he shouldn’t have that person anymore representing him.
Well, I’m thinking at some point he’s going to look around, like, hey, this guy could cost me tens of millions of dollars. I might move on. U all right. So Paulie, I’m I’m I’m looking at uh you know NBA free agency going on now and teams are you know starting to make some moves. We’re seeing you know trades yesterday. Cam Johnson gets traded to the Denver Nuggets. You’re seeing teams be active and yes I I understand the Suns were active last week. They the Kevin Durant trade was eight days ago, right? Everything that leading up to and during the draft was just last week. But they are still very limited now in what they can really do to round out the young pieces they’ve added into an actual team. They can’t really do much in free agency with all due respect to Nigel Hayes Davis. I I don’t know that that’s necessarily like going out and adding Miles Turner, let’s say, because of Bradley Beal and his contract that they can’t trade and they’re really limited in if they can even stretch and wave because Bradley Beal would have to take about a $2.5 million pay cut each of the next five years for them to do that. So now we’re kind of getting into that territory of like are we just going to have Bradley Beal on the team for another year?
So you’re saying if let me you know sometimes you have to dumb this down for me. Okay.
Okay.
Um there’s no good forget a good exit plan with Bradley Beal. There is no exit plan. There is no exit plan that the Phoenix Suns control. So because he has the no trade, the stretch and wave isn’t feasible, viable, even allowable in most circumstances is now our understanding unless he’s willing to take less money. Okay,
but they the I’ll repeat this again for everybody that this kind of like, oh, they’ll just stretch and wave. They cannot stretch and wave Bradley Beal unless he agrees to a pay cut. Okay, after considerable thought here, at least the last 17 seconds, here’s what I’ve come up with. Calves consulting the poly round ball division suggests the following. We need an answer. So, give us one.
CP3 is the answer. Keeping Bradley Beal, but instituting a new layer of accountability,
okay,
named Chris Paul. That’s a good layer of accountability. Do you bring in Chris Paul who had some brief success with DeAndre Aiden? Uh ultimately, uh he just stopped talking to him and once again,
but they did go to the NBA finals.
Yes. So, can you somehow unlock something? Maybe get a willingness, a return, you know, to get out there and do more than just look like you’re playing YMCA basketball out there with the fellas, you know, get some actual NBA caliber intensity and production out of Bradley Beal that would be somewhere anywhere in the vicinity of and commensurate with his compensation. Can you somehow get Chris Paul in the building and he would be more than worth the veterans minimum if he can get you some dare I say any return on investment at the 50 million plus a year that Bradley Beal is owed if somehow someway Chris Paul could is I I’m not optimistic that Randy Gregory Brad Brian Gregory is going to get that out of Bradley Beal even though they went to lunch you know I’m not optimistic that Jordan not is going to be able to do that when didn’t work with the two prior head coaches. So, okay. Um, what exactly is the answer with Bradley Beal? Maybe instead of deleting and subtracting, namely Beal himself in his contract, maybe it’s adding someone or something that might actually result in some progress with Bradley Beal. It’s amazing that they are as stuck as they are, you know, and this is just the ultimate slap in the face to Valley sports fans. If you’ve got an owner now that is willing to spend whatever it takes, right? All these years you didn’t have an owner that was willing to spend whatever it takes. Okay, you get Matt Ishb, he’s willing to spend whatever it takes and now the league has decided you’re not allowed to spend. Whereas, you know, at the same time over in Major League Baseball, you got the Diamondbacks trying to chase down a Dodgers team that can spend a billion dollars every offseason. I understand two different sports, two different commissioners, you know, but they the fact that they can’t they cannot get rid of Bradley Beal’s contract limits what they can do in free agency.
And it also it also causes problems in terms of like if he if he plays, you’re limiting Jaylen Green’s development or growth within this team because how are you going to play Devin Booker and Jaylen Green and Bradley Beal consistent minutes? to say nothing of what you would do with Grayson Allen or Royce O’Neal. I mean, I would assume you’re you’re moving them at that point, but normally if you’re in a situation that’s this awkward and this you can you can always buy your way out of it. If teams don’t buy their way out of it, it’s because owners aren’t willing to buy their way out of it. Like, hey, you’re the GM, you made this mess, you’re going to have to deal with it. That’s not the case here. You know, Ishbia would buy his way out of this if he could, and he can’t. And and what do coaches, especially brand new coaches in their very first head coaching gig, hate more than anything else? Distractions. Yes. You don’t need this if you’re Jordan Knot.
So, you come in and and you’re trying to get control of your locker room. And there’s one guy who’s on his own agenda, on his own plan. You know, talk about trust my process, Bradley Beiel’s over there. And he’s just a oneoff. He’s, you know, an island onto himself. No, we’re not talking about Love Island. He’s an island unto himself. And then you’re trying to institute some sort of accountability that holds everyone culpable in that locker room. Except, wait a minute, there’s Bradley Beal with his no trade clause and his guaranteed contract. He answers to no one. So once again, I think you have to bring in a peer, not necessarily a boss or a superior, especially a first time head coach or firsttime GM. That ain’t going to work. So to me, you got to bring in a hard driver, someone who’s demanding, someone who’s played what, 21 years in the NBA. I mean, it’s Yes. Because here’s the problem. You You did all that. You moved Kevin Durant. And whether people want to believe it or not, when you move Kevin Durant, when you move somebody that was sixth in the NBA in scoring last year, and he’s an all-time great scorer, when you move that, you do open the door to either criticism or regret as the season goes. Now, again, I think we’re all on the same page. They needed to make the move to bring in pieces. And right now in this moment, I some of those pieces are pretty exciting. But how is it going to feel if we’re in February and the Suns aren’t winning because they couldn’t they couldn’t go all the way with it because they’re still stuck with Bradley Beal. So, you couldn’t like fully rebuild and the Rockets are like going to the NBA finals. I mean, that’s going to be again another slap in the face to Phoenix Suns fans that quite honestly Suns fans don’t deserve another slap in the face. If you’re going to move Durant, you would like to be able to move everything that you want to move out out. You’re still in apron problems now. And you’ve moved Kevin Durant. So, here’s Fred Katz of The Athletic, who was on with uh with um he was on with us yesterday actually talking about teams Beal might be considering maybe.
You know what’s amazing about the Beal situation is that I think the question has to be what teams does Bradley Beal have interest in, right? But you got to find a place that he wants to go to. And at least so far, I haven’t really found a place that I think he would want to go to that really makes sense for them to take him in from a basketball perspective. Uh, you know, I think I think winning is an important thing to him. Uh, you know, I’ve heard wanting kind of to be in a place where he’s actually wanted and feels comfortable is important to him. But at the same time, like I know a huge thing for him. I’ve been told time and time again is, you know, he moved his family from DC to Los Angeles his first year when he was with the Suns.
He moved them full-time to Phoenix, but I think there’s got to be something that is good for him and also good for his family. And then also, you got to find a team that’s actually willing to, you know, take on that money.
And that’s the problem, Paulie. It’s not like Bradley Beal is doing anything wrong. I’m a little surprised if he’s still here next season that he would want to still be here next season. I understand there’s the just real life stuff. You know, he moved his family here. probably like keeps kids in the same school. I get all that, but I’m just I’m I would be a little surprised professionally that he would want to still play on the Suns with the way things are going and with how limited they are with his contract here. I
I buy all the family stuff. I’m not buying the he wants to win. How long did he stay in Washington? Yeah. And they can’t win here with his contract here, even if he plays great. Didn’t seem to me like he was too broken up about losing all those games last year when he’s smiling out on the floor and the Suns are getting jacks stomped. So, not I’m not sure I’m buying the he wants to win and needs to go to a winner. Not so much.
More importantly, this is the second segment in a row where you’ve referenced Love Island, which prompted Jamal during the last break to ask you if you’re a big Love Island guy.
Yeah. And then he denied being a fan himself, a viewer himself. Yeah. Nobody’s buying that either. I mean, what are you doing, Rick? Where’s the lie detector around here? I mean, I we got lies flying around left and right. Let’s get some accountability here in the show.
This studio is a house of lies. Just scratch off my bingo card. Paulie bringing up Love Island. And the bingo card is just 25 boxes of that. It’s just
Yeah. You know what? You guys uh you guys profiled the old guy over here. Didn’t think I’d bring up Love Island. That’s what you get.
We’re We’re printing these cards tomorrow, Jamal. We got to have these cuz by then everybody will have forgotten. Thanks for watching Wolf and Luke. Tap to see more and click the button in the middle to subscribe to Arizona Sports.

With the NBA salary cap for the 2025-26 season set, the Phoenix Suns must make a decision about Bradley Beal. Luke Lapinski and guest host Paul Calvisi consider what options the Suns have regarding the shooting guard, especially if they want to get under the second apron.

Here’s the complication for a Bradley Beal waive-and-stretch: https://arizonasports.com/nba/phoenix-suns/bradley-beal-stretch/3588769/

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