Bradley Beal Buyout Update! Plus Damian Lillard Linked To Celtics Move

Bradley Beal Buyout Update! Plus Damian Lillard Linked To Celtics Move

Red alert, all eyes on the desert. A big update on the Bradley Beal front. Is he getting bought out by the Phoenix Suns, plus a potential landing spot for Damen Lillard. I’m Trevor Lane. This is the Basketball Bulletin. Make sure you subscribe right here to the channel. We’re going to keep you up to date on everything going on around the NBA. All right, let’s dive in here. John Gamidoro, radio host out of Phoenix, does a nice job covering the Suns there. said, “I expect a decision and resolution on Bradley Beal’s situation in the next 24 to 48 hours.” Now, that means Bradley Beal is most likely either going to wind up being traded or bought out in the next 24 to 48 hours. Gamodora has been very, very adamant that he will not be back with the Phoenix Suns next season. I still say looking at the situation from a math standpoint, from a riskreward standpoint, bringing Bradley Beal back makes the most sense to me. But Gamoro very plugged in in the Phoenix market. Maybe not as much in other markets, but in the Phoenix market, very plugged in there. And he is adamant that Bradley Beal will not be a Phoenix Sun next season. In terms of on the court, it makes sense to not bring back Bradley Beal. already picked up Jaylen Green in the Kevin Durant trade and Jaylen Green and Devin Booker together. Just those two is kind of a mess. You add Bradley Beal into the mix and yeah, that’s a nightmare of having those three guys together. Always simmer similar strengths but more importantly similar weaknesses. So that is very very challenging for the Phoenix Suns. But Bradley Beal, the problem is the contract. We’ve talked a lot about this, but you look at this. This is a lot of money for Beal. $54 million we’re rounding up to get there this coming season. $57 million on a player option season after that. And he’s got that pesky no trade clause, which means he can decline a trade to anywhere if he wants to stay with the Phoenix Suns. That’s it. He’s going to stay with the Phoenix Suns unless they do something dramatic like wave him. Now, what they could do is try to buy out Bradley Beal because most teams would agree, in fact, every team would agree that is a terrible value contract. Beal is simply not worth that kind of money. Now, is he still a good player? Absolutely still a good player. If he gets bought out and suddenly the Suns are paying him and he can go somewhere else, there will be a ton of teams interested in him. There are levels to this, right? Teams will not be interested in Bradley Beal at $54 million with the no trade clause. Teams will be interested in Bradley Beal if they can pick him up for a minimum or a bannual exception. We’re talking about a little over $3 million, little little over $5 million. That completely changes the equation of not just what you’re getting in terms of bang for your buck with Bradley Beal, but also what kind of a team you can afford around Beal. If Beal is taking up almost $54 million in cap space, very difficult to build a successful team around him if he’s taken up 3 million, 5 million, much easier to actually have the right supporting pieces for him to properly make use of his talents. So, what would a buyout look like for the Suns? Because I do think while there may be trade options for Beal, there could be teams that look to shed maybe some long-term salary, try to do something there, that no trade clause is certainly problematic. You have to find a team that Beal wants to go to, which is not going to be necessarily easy. His family reportedly loves it in the desert and he’s got a no trade clause which gives him the ability to stop any trade from happening. But let’s say they go the buyout route with Bradley Beal. Well, first of all, Beal doesn’t have to give back any money. He can say, “Nope, I’m keeping all of it. this is what I’m contractually promised. I’m going to keep the money. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s in his contract. He can keep that money. And the Suns could just say, “Okay, we’re going to wave you.” And then eat the entirety of that salary, which means they would have to pay Bradley Beal to not play basketball for them. I don’t think this makes sense for the Phoenix Suns because all this does is lock his money on your books. Once you wave a player, that’s it. Their money is set there. You can’t do anything with it. if you keep him on the roster as a player, at least the potential is there to trade him at some point down the line. He picks up that player option next summer and maybe he says, “Okay, I’m going into the final year. My deal, a trade opportunity opens up that he simply can’t pass up. Maybe there’s a city he really likes that suddenly becomes an option and there you go.” I’m not saying that’s a likely scenario, but that scenario is impossible if you wave Bradley Beal. Now, the other thing they could do if they do wave him is they could actually stretch his money out over the life of the contract times 2 + 1. So, the way that would work would be a two-year remaining contract times two is four plus one 5 years. You could stretch a salary out over 5 years. However, because of league rules in terms of how much money you can actually have dead sitting on your books, if you’re going to stretch a salary, you’re limited to 15% of the cap. They already have some dead money on their books. So Bradley Beal would need to give back about $14 million in order to make something like that feasible. So that’s challenging as well. How badly does how badly does Bradley want to leave the desert? Does he want to get out of Phoenix enough to give back that much money? So far it sounded like he doesn’t want to leave Phoenix at all, which is a big part of the equation here, too. And part of the reason why we haven’t seen more trade activity with Bradley Beal. But there’s no real good option here for the Phoenix Suns. Clearly, they don’t want Beal back on their team next year. He doesn’t want to leave Phoenix. His family likes it there and he’s paid a lot of money plus has that no trade clause which would transfer with him making it very unlikely that another team would want to trade for him. So some resolution according to John Gamodoro coming in the next 24 to 48 hours. Will it be a buyout? If there is, I expect a ton of teams to have interest in Bradley Beal. If it’s not, if it’s a trade, we’ll be really interesting to see. Number one, what team did Bradley Beal say, “Okay, I’ll wave my no trade clause to go to.” And number two, what team said, “We’ll trade for Bradley Beal on that contract with a no trade clause.” Certainly going to be keeping an eye on this situation as it develops. But let’s jump over to the other shocking buyout that we saw in the NBA, and that is Damen Lillard. Now, in this case, the Milwaukee Bucks had uh some incentive to buy out Lillard in that they can take Lillard, the savings that they got, and turn that savings into Miles Turner, their rival Pacers big man, and ideally convince Giannis Ant Koopos to stay in Milwaukee. By the way, this is a disaster for the Bucks if Giannis turns around sometime here in July, maybe by the end of the month, and says, “Yeah, I still don’t think we can win. I want out.” This is all being done to convince Giannis to stay. And by the way, I’m not expecting that. I think Giannis will stay, especially after seeing the hoops that the Bucks are jumping through. I mean, being willing to now pay Damen Lillard this much money to not pay play basketball for their team. Of course, he can’t play this season, but the Bucks are saying, “Look, we’ll accept this much dead money on our books, $22.5 million per year over the next five years. will accept that penalty in exchange to for getting you Miles Turner and giving you a shot to win right now. I would be shocked if Giannis were to still ask out of Milwaukee. If he does, it would be a complete disaster for the Bucks at this point. But Damen Lillard now, similar to what we talked about with Bradley Beal, he’s a free agent. He probably won’t play this coming season. If he does, it will be at the very end of the season. So, where does he potentially land? because what you could see is a team sign him now with the expectation of having him come back next year. Now, a team that has already been linked to him and a team that he reportedly has interest in, it’s the Boston Celtics who are already dealing with an Achilles injury to their star Jason Tatum. So, this is Gary Washburn reporting one team Lillard has interest in joining is the Boston Celtics. And the Celtics have interest in teaming up with him. That’s key because Lillard, similar to Bradley Beal, Lillard is getting paid by the Bucks now. Lillard can go wherever he wants. And that’s the nice thing about Lillard’s free agency and why he’s so excited about this is because now his salary is getting covered by the Bucks. That a team’s cap sheet does not matter for Damen Lillard anymore. He could sign with a minimum and doesn’t matter. He’s still getting paid 50 plus million dollars by the Milwaukee Bucks. So, a team having cap space to sign him is inconsequential because he could sign for a minimum and his salary is still getting covered. Now, would it be nice to sign for more? Sure. But he’s already getting a big salary. So, this really gives him the flexibility to go anywhere that he wants. And so, it’s critical that Lillard has interest in a team and the team has interest in him. Uh when Lillard was seeking a trade from the Blazers two years ago, he wasn’t interested in a trade to Boston. Now he has some interest in the Celtics in part because of the close friendship he’s built with star forward Jason Tatum. So that’s where things get interesting for Boston because they were able to jettison so much salary off their books. Drop below that second tier apron. That was the big key uh for them. Shed the the salary of Christophorzingis plus Drew Holiday. Get those guys off the books and now they can reset things. They’re probably going to take a gap year here uh in the coming season and maybe wind up with a decent draft pick. They do still have Jaylen Brown. They do still have uh Derek White. So, they’ve got some pieces, but Porzingis is on his way out. So is Drew Holiday. They’re probably going to take a step back. It’s part of the reason why we’re seeing teams like the Atlanta Hawks and Orlando Magic really going for it in the Eastern Conference because the East looks more wide open than ever with now Boston taking a step back for this season. They do have Anthony Simons coming in, but he’s on a one-year contract. He could wind up getting flipped in another deal that was part of the Drew Holiday trade. And now you’ve got Damen Lillard with interest in the Celtics. So what could happen is Lillard signs with the Celtics. Now Jason Tatum and Lillard both rehab their Achilles injuries and then next year after taking a gap year, maybe get a nice high pick. We’ll see what Jaylen Brown I mean there’s still talent here. Jaylen Brown, Derek White, you still have pieces that could go help you win some games, but maybe you get a decent draft pick and then you get back not just Jason Tatum, but also Damen Lillard to add to your team. And then you’ve got a team with Lillard, with Derek White, with Jaylen Brown, with Jason Tatum, and you’re off and ready to roll. Plus a high draft pick. You’ve got flexibility to make other moves. That could make it a very short one-year downturn for the Boston Celtics. And I think that’s part of what Damen Lilith has to be looking at. Hey, this team’s already planning on taking a step back this year. There’s no pressure on me to come back this season. I can just rehab fully and then Jason Tatum and I come back a year from now. That is what I think is really intriguing for Damen Lillard and potentially landing with the Boston Celtics. All right, everybody. Give me your thoughts in the comments down below. If Bradley Beal gets bought out, where should he land? You know, tons of teams will have interest in him if the Phoenix Suns are already footing the bill. And then Damen Lillard, are the Boston Celtics the best option for him? Give me your thoughts in the comments down below. Don’t forget to subscribe right here to the channel. Till next time, see you and stay safe.

In this video Trevor Lane takes a look at the Bradley Beal situation, which is reportedly nearing a conclusion that could see him hit the buyout market or traded to another club. Plus, Damian Lillard has interest in the Celtics, could they be coming back in a big way after a step back this season?

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