Why the Clippers are a COMPELLING destination for Bradley Beal | The Hoop Collective

Why the Clippers are a COMPELLING destination for Bradley Beal | The Hoop Collective

We have some significant NBA news and there’s going to be some more. I think we’re going to get a fairly newsy second week here. So, we’ll see and and by the time this comes by spot comes out. But I would say the most interesting thing that’s happened so far this week at least as we’re recording this is the three-way trade between the Heat Jazz and um LA Clippers where Norm Powell went to LA, I’m sorry, went to Miami. uh John Collins to the Clippers and um Kevin Love a second round pick and I don’t even remember what the other piece was in that other guy. Kyle Anderson slow-mo. Um so the Clippers have prioritized clearing cap space for 2027. That’s how they set uh Kawhi Leonard’s deal. That’s how they have elected to set James Harden’s deal. and they just were not interested in extending Norm Pal, at least not at a number he was interested in doing. And so Norm Pal was probably not going to be a Clipper for very long and so they traded him. Miami was able to essentially really do well in this trade. You know, uh, Slow-Mo is a backup. Kevin Love only played 23 games last year. Um, although some of that was to be with his father who was who was dying. It wasn’t all due to injury, but still Kevin Love was, you know, a big player for them. Kylie Anderson a backup, and they were able to deliver themselves a borderline all-star friend of the pod, Norman Pal. So, Bontamps, that was a for a team that was in need of a talent influx. And certainly, I’m not saying they’re ready to win the East, but that was just from their transactional value, that was an excellent move from Pat Riley and the Heatfront office, Andy Ellisburg, etc. Yeah, I mean this is a fascinating deal on a lot of levels. I mean obviously you just laid out the Miami part, right? They turned a couple spare parts of the second round pick into Norm Powell and whether Norm starts or come off comes off the bench for Miami next year. They just got a lot better adding him to their team. You look at the Jazz, we go back I guess about a month ago. Okay, we’re doing this one team at a time. Okay, we’re going to start the heat. Well, for but yes, for Miami, um certainly we have talked a lot about how the Heat are um sort of stuck in no man’s land and it’s unclear what direction they’re going in overall. Um, but they are a team under Pat Riley and Andy Ellburg and Eric Bolstra is always going to try to be competitive dayto-day and this is a move that without sacrificing any long-term assets allows them to be a lot more competitive this year in what is, as we’ve talked about many times, a very down and very wide open Eastern Conference. And you know, you can make an argument adding a guy like Norm essentially for free that Miami could be a team that is a top four team maybe in the East at the end of the day or at least has a chance to be. And before this trade, you wouldn’t have said that. So I think it’s a I think this trade’s a clear win for everybody involved. But that’s why I think it’s a clear win for Miami. So McMahon, if you look at Jimmy Butler, he was making $50 million. They have essentially broken that 50 million into Andrew Wiggins who they acquired as part of the Jimmy Butler trade, Norm Powell and DaVon Mitchell, who they picked up um kind of in an ancillary part of that uh that Jimmy Butler trade and they’ve resigned. He he he finished the season really well for them. They resigned. Obviously, that’s not going to lead any NBA Today broadcast, but they have pieced it together a little bit. Um, and you know, considering that there’s there’s there’s not a clarity after like number three or four in the East. I suppose that there’s something to be said for piecing those three guys together out of the Butler trade. Yeah. And and you know, Norm Pal obviously gives him a lot more juice offensively. you said he was a borderline all-star, didn’t make it last year. His chances of being an all-star certainly increased by by moving the Eastern Conference competitions. Not quite as tough. Um, now, you know, we’ll see how much of his success last season with the Clippers was influenced by playing with a table setting point guard like James Harden has really become uh at this stage of his career. But this is a a no-brainer for the Heat. like Bon Tim said, they gave up, you know, a backup and kind of an end of the uh a bench veteran, a guy who’s had a great career, but Kevin loves an end the bench veteran. They didn’t even they weren’t even the ones who threw in the second round pick. So, it’s it’s a no-brainer talent acquisition move uh for the Heat. Um I think probably the team that’s most interesting in this deal is the Clippers, though. Yeah. So, the Clippers, they needed a frontline power forward. It’s hard to ex, you know, to expect Kawhi Leonard to play huge minutes there. Um, they had Batum, who they did bring back. They talked him out of retirement. Batum’s been talked out of retirement for like three straight years now. How many more How many more years he gonna get talked out of retirement? Um, so every year you can make five or six million dollars. That’s a good place to start. That’s a good place to start. Um, so they obviously had Batum there, but you know, I don’t know if you want Kawwai playing huge minutes there. So now they have a frontline power forward. They add Brook Lopez, so they’ve really bulked up their size. Look, Collins is a player who is limited. He has been limited throughout his career, but he’s also got some positives. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be teams who would want him and pay him what he’s making. But the, you know, the the Hawks struggled to trade him for a while. The Jazz struggled to trade him for a while. There’s a reason he’s got limited value. The interesting thing is they’ve opened up this hole at shooting guard because Norm Powell was a really important piece for the Clippers last year. He played a very important role, especially scoring, especially while Kawawaii was out. And so there’s been this, you know, maybe not assumption, but belief that that could be Bradley Beal’s landing spot, who is potentially on the verge of getting bought out from the Suns. It’s been on the verge for quite some time. It’s We’ll see. Maybe by the time the spot is out, it’ll be there. But, you know, Bradley Beal at $50 million is underachieving. Bradley Beal at $4 million, which would be the minimum. Or maybe he maybe they can give him the bannual. I’m not sure. Whatever it is, all of a sudden there’s a whole different value proposition. But I’m sure there’s going to be other people bidding for Bradley Beal. That said, if if Bradley Beal had a starting level role sitting there with the Clippers to go to, that would be compelling. And one wonders if the Clippers have if they are not uncertain about Bradley Beal’s intentions by making this trade bonus. Yeah. From the moment this trade happened, the only logical thing you could look at was that Bradley Beal would wind up with the Clippers with John Collins and they would get remarkkedly better as a result because the Clippers were trying to compete next year. And while John Collins and Dor Powell are similar players I think in value which is why they end up getting swapped for each other they aren’t similar players in terms of fit and when you look at this Clippers roster they right now basically only have James Harden who could do anything with the ball. So Brady Beal would obviously slot right in there play a huge role for them and I think the reason we’ve been waiting to see where Brady Beal will go and when this file process will start is because there hasn’t been any clarity on where he’ll land. And I I think that’s been part of what the hold up has been. And ironically, one of the other places that has been rumored as a place for him to land was Miami. And with Miami getting Powell in this deal, on top of the fact the Clippers open up this spot at shooting guard, you certainly wouldn’t think Miami is an option for Brad Beal anymore either. So all that points to the Clippers winding up with Beal, who I think is player to Nor Powell and John Collins in the same deal. Pretty good return for that. Well, it’s a great situation for Beal. uh he’s going to have to give back about $14 million on the buyout to make the math work uh for the Suns. He won’t make that up in year one, but I assume it’ probably be like a onepus one, you know, two-year deal with a player option, that sort of a thing. Have a chance to more than make it up next year and to be put into a situation where he’s got a starting role on a competitive team, a team that certainly expects to be back in the playoffs. Um, you know, I think he’s there’s some family ties for him in LA. Certainly, a lot of NBA players enjoy Los Angeles and, you know, if he’s moving his family that I’m sure there’ll be some appeal there. And then John Collins to me is really interesting. I’m not sure that he starts. To me, it makes a lot of sense to have him paired with Brook Lopez as often as possible. Lopez obviously is not a role man. You know, he’s a guy who at this point in his career, he spends a lot of his offensive possessions spaced about 27 feet from the hoop. John Collins is still one hell of a lob catcher. And you know, the problem with John Collins in Utah was he was too damn productive last season. I I don’t even remember all the injuries they came up with to make sure he didn’t play. But seriously, they limited him to 40 games last year. He played less than half the schedule. He played in 70 plus percent of their wins. They c they won they didn’t win a lot but they won too often with John Collins in the lineup and he was a reason like they they had to get rid of him. They couldn’t have him on the roster. They might win too much with him. Was he they got fined for protocols. Was he was I can’t remember. Was he the reason they got fined or was that something else? I mean come on. They had him they had sex comments. Yeah. It goes back to Austin ages the comments a month ago when he got hired when he said we’re not going to manipulate lineups anymore. People took that as they were going to try to win. What it really was was they’re not going to stop sitting. They’re going to stop sitting guys and just not playing guys who are on the roster. They’re going to play young guys and see how it goes. And we’ve seen over the last month they moved out from Kyle Ston. They moved out from Jordan Clarkson. Now they moved out from John Collins. It’s very clear what the motive is. Okay. So that brings the question minutes to play. Are they going to move on from Lowry marketing? That’s that’s the question that you’re hearing a lot of. I would say I don’t think it will be immediately because I don’t think that, you know, just logically selling low on marketing doesn’t make much sense. I think if they’re going to trade Larry Markin, they need him in the lineup and they need him playing well. really need him, you know, showcasing that he’s a sevenfooter who can do a lot of things uh in in terms of scoring the ball. Um last year was was a bad year for him. It was obviously a wonky year and in and out of the lineup with with all that stuff going on. Um but I think they can have Larry Markin in the lineup and they’re still going to be the 15th best team in the Western Conference this year. He also has four years and 196 million left on his deal. Yeah. value a bit to get to the place where they would like to turn into assetwise. Yeah. At the end of the day, the Jazz have to um meet the salary floor. Sure. And um they have a $27 million trade exception that they’re using basically to stay above the salary cap that was created in this. They could use it for a number of different things as the season goes along. They could still use it in free agency um if they wanted. Uh, but I will say that, you know, while I agree with you that I don’t think Markin is getting traded in the next few weeks, I know that this is not necessarily what he signed up for. So, keep an eye on Markin. I hear you. But it like did Markin think they were going to be good soon? No. I agree with you on the keep your eye on him, though. But I’m not going to sit here and play violation. I don’t think this is what he thought they were going to do is I think that’s the fact he may not be able to do anything about it. He also made sure he was going to be on the team all last season, too. So I think he willingly signed up for this thing. Yeah, he had a one-year no trade clause. But yeah, like hey, Larry Markin I think might have the most games played of anybody now without a uh without a playoff appearance in terms of active players. If if not, he’s right up there. Um and and I think you look at like they’re very early in a rebuild and again they need Ace Bailey to pop um because there none of these other guys have flashed star potential. We’ll see if, you know, if a Cody Williams or one of these other guys might, but they haven’t to this point. Um, and they dumped all their vets. They dumped Clarkson. They dumped Ston. They dumped uh John Collins. And they for a net of no picks, they attached a pick to Sexton, which I I still that I’m confused still. And then they got a pick back for Collins. And then Clarkson was just a buyout. But they cleared it out to where they will be, you know, if it was a if it was a 24 and under league. I think the Jet Well, I don’t know cuz their summer league team’s not even that good. I was going to say I think they’d be the Thunder might win that one.

On The Hoop Collective, Brian Windhorst, Tim Bontemps and Tim MacMahon discuss whether Bradley Beal could be headed to the Los Angeles Clippers following the three-team trade between the Miami Heat, Utah Jazz and Clippers.

✔️ Subscribe to ESPN+ http://espnplus.com/youtube
✔️ Get the ESPN App: http://www.espn.com/espn/apps/espn
✔️ Subscribe to ESPN on YouTube: http://es.pn/SUBSCRIBEtoYOUTUBE
✔️ Subscribe to NBA on ESPN on YouTube: http://bit.ly/SUBSCRIBEtoNBAonESPN
✔️ Watch ESPN on YouTube TV: http://es.pn/YouTubeTV