Have we figured out why Bradley Beal is still on the Phoenix Suns?

Have we figured out why Bradley Beal is still on the Phoenix Suns?

All right, stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but this really does feel like this is going to be the Bradley Beal week. I mean, to the point where like it’s almost let’s start the the baby office pool, like pick the day and the time that Bradley Beal’s release is broken by Gambo or Shams or whoever is going to break it. It feels like this is the week for it to happen. I think we all would have said last week would have been the week for it to happen too, but it it am I wrong? Is it is it feel would you be shocked if we got to the end of this week and there was still no resolution on this or or is this the week for it to get fix? No, because this is just the last thing that needs to happen for me to be completely absently of course. Yeah, me um this is the last week for me and everyone listening and you and Mitch to be absolved of this basketball season once and for all. like this is the last thing. Once Brad Brad’s situation is done, we can finally just move on from last season and the last couple of years and all this nonsense that I’ve been telling a lot of people like this was a very taxing season to cover. I’m sure for you guys, for me, too, like I could not wait for late July when we were finally like just the season’s over, the offseason’s over, time to I love basketball more than anyone, but it’s time to disconnect a bit. And this is like the last move that has to happen. Yeah. And so part of me is like, it’s never going to happen. Just like we can never get rid of we can’t end this season. Yeah, we can’t get rid of it just yet. But no, it feels like the middle of this week for sure. Tuesday is the date, right? That’s that’s the date. So that’s that’s the latest in all of this. And yes, Tuesday is the date. This was according to Mark Stein over the weekend. And I’ll just read you what he wrote from his Markstein Substack. Um per him, why is Beal’s highly anticipated buyout from Phoenix and subsequent for free agency unfolding so slowly? The Stein line has identified one potential snag. League sources say Beal’s current contract stipulates that he is owed a 25% advanced payment on his 202526 salary on July 15th as in tomorrow. The early payment is valued at more than$13 million. Sources say that Beal will ultimately get that amount no matter how his eventual exit from the Suns plays out. It is believed that he could elect to wait for that payment to go through before proceeding with his departure from the desert. So, the amount he’s owed doesn’t change. It’s just tomorrow he gets a little advance of that payment. He gets, you know, 25% of it or whatever that comes out to. And that he could just be simply waiting on that to happen and then he’ll say yes. Does this snag make sense to you, Mr. Kellen Olsen? It does. Um, I think that what we were dealing with here in the Brad situation was always going to be this is going to operate through him whether you like it or not. You need to have him agree to a trade or you need to have him agree to a buyout. Both of those require the word agree. He needs to agree. And if he says, “Yeah, I’ll do it, but we need to wait until this date to make sure I get this money now.” Then you have to wait. and he’s in a situation now where due to the timing of this, maybe this is always going to be the time when it was going to get done. But regardless, like there really isn’t much money left. Like the Clippers are the team that still makes the most sense for him. They can offer him a little over $5 million a year. That is not the number that we were talking about just a few weeks ago, a few months ago, and like we were like, “Oh yeah, he’ll get the full mid-level from someone.” That has not happened and it wasn’t really ever going to happen if I’m being honest. So now he’s in a situation where he’s got to get that money somewhere. This is the way for him to get it. So you add up that what is it? 13. 13. Yeah. 13. Yeah. That 13 out of that five, there’s your 18. So he’s got a little bit of that money back and and the buyout starts to add up a little bit more in terms of him getting some of the money back on top of, you know, the rest of the money that he is going to get. And then and then then the question fast forwards to and this is where I’ve really started to temper my expectations a little bit here. And I I don’t know whether this is right or wrong of me to do this, but what happens to the Suns after the Bradley Beal release happens? Is is there going to be, you know, they’ll immediately plummet under the aprons? They’ll immediately be eligible to do other things if they want to aggregate salaries. Certainly, they’ll have a roster spot. Theoretically, they’ll have two roster spots because Kobe Bray is on a two-way. So, they they could, you know, go out and and in theory add a couple veteran minimum guys, and they probably will do so. I know Gambo on his Twitter account suggests that a point guard could be somewhere in the queue if they go out and do something with Bradley Beal. But in terms of what I don’t know, Kellen, is whether I should be expecting once they’re free to aggregate salaries, should I be expecting an aggregation of salaries? Should I be expecting a Grayson Allen, Royce O’Neal, Nick Richards, some sort of combination to bring in? And I don’t know. I I don’t or are they just going to go sign a guy to the veterans minimum and keep everything exactly the same and just keep this roster completely out of balance going into the season? I I think it’s the big question for sure. Um shout out to David, also known as the four-point play on Suns Twitter. He’s been on there forever. He’s our Empire of the Suns Australian correspondent. He’s done great work for a really long time. He does all the cap minutia, that kind of thing. And what he was pointing out yesterday is that if you approximate and figure out these numbers as close as you can, if they were to get this deal done with be the wave and stretch and then they were to add one more player on the minimum, they would just be like a hair under the luxury tax. like a hair like really like $50,000 like that close under the luxury tax which begs the question of if that is by design especially and then they would be done doing moves or at least doing moves that would give them any more money. The extreme irony is that they are unlocking the ability to take on more money in a trade. He said, “Well, that is part of what they’re doing by getting out of the apron is unlocking all these restrictions.” And yet, they’ve found a way for a new restriction to be in place, even that though that restriction is gone. And something we’re going to be talking about a lot, I imagine, when this happens at some point this week, and getting after is you look at the motivation for doing all these all these things. Obviously, get out of the apron, the frozen draft picks, potentially moving into the first round, bad business. The tax thing is is a real thing here. Don’t get me wrong, because something that we talked about a lot the la the last couple of years is that the tax has what’s called a repeater. And that means it’s going to punish you and hammer you more and more the longer you are in the tax. The Warriors with Joe Lacob learned this the hard way where you’ll remember there was that Kelly Ubé trade that they did where like the amount of luxury tax money that they were paying extra for I wish I could remember the number 80 million or something just by adding a guy that made seven or whatever. That’s how insane the multipliers get and the Suns are trending in that sort of direction. And so if they duck under a year, duck under a couple of years, it will really help them. And then, you know, uh, for a year, not have to pay an extra 200 plus million dollars for a team that is probably not going to win 35 games. That part helps, too. Is that what Suns fans want to hear? No. No. No. But it’s also, you know what, I think there are some Suns fans who do want to hear that. Okay. I I I think there are some Suns fans who I don’t think they’re like, you know, I know Matt Ishb has said time and time again, people don’t care about the tax. They don’t care about aprons. They don’t care about that stuff. Well, they they do care when your your hands are tied. You know, they do care when you when you lack the flexibility. You know, you can’t go sign that guy. Why not? Well, because of the tax. You can’t go sign that guy. Why not? Well, because of the apron. Well, then they do care. Then I think they care very much when they’re told the why. You’re not able to just do whatever you want willy-nilly when it comes to building your basketball team. So, I think I I think the tax I think getting under there and staying under there is starting to feel more and more like the motivation to do this and just stay there for a year or two to really reset things. It’s not going to make for a better roster. just I have a hard time envisioning you you you get under the the tax, you wave and stretch Bradley Beal and what you’re going to tell me the first thing you’re going to do is you’re going to cobble together Grayson Allen and Nick Richard’s contract and you’re going to go make another move. You know, like it just you just you just got here. Don’t you want to stay for a little bit and just allow things to settle and be for a while? And you can still trade those guys and still remain under the tax to be clear. But it’s just if there’s the perfect offer out there, but you’re taking on $75,000 more the Suns can’t afford right now. Yeah. Because you just continue becoming a repeater in that tax scenario. And and I I would think they needed to to break that streak for There’s always a price. It It gets there for everyone, even the people that make billions and billions of dollars. It’s always there eventually. We’ll see if the Bradley I it’s I think it’s going to happen this week, but then, you know, I thought it was going to happen last week, too. when it didn’t. Thanks for watching Burns and Gambo. Click to see more from the guys and hit the button in the middle to subscribe so you never miss a video from Arizona Sports.

Burns and Gambo, with Kellan Olson filling in for Gambo, discuss when they think Bradley Beal will be bought out by the Phoenix Suns. Could it be tomorrow?

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