Phoenix Suns fans deserve closure as end of Bradley Beal era draws near
I got a text from our good friend John Gamidoro this morning. Remember what does he know? Come on, only everything. Uh, in which he said, uh, okay, after about nine days of thinking this thing was going to get done, he also believes it’s going to get done today or tomorrow. Okay. Um, and so we we wait and we watch and Jamal’s got his finger poised on the breaking news sounder. Your prediction was 3:47 today. Yeah. Which, you know, we’ve got Satu Sabi on the show. Not great by you. And I probably should have not disrespected her like that by predicting breaking news while she’s on the show like that. Um stoked to talk to her by the way. She’s awesome. She we had her on the show when they first awesome basketball player. Might be an even awesome more awesome person to talk to. Tremendous. And we’ll find out if she’s planning on playing in the WNBA all-star game because she’s hurt. She missed yesterday’s game. Uh and there’s one more for the merc before they get to the All-Star break. And you I’m remind you guessed because you said today. No, you said didn’t you say tomorrow? H didn’t you? When we were predicting this yesterday, didn’t we? I said uh tomorrow at like 11 something. Okay. Okay. Either way, we feel like it’s close. I feel like it’s going to happen by by the start of our show tomorrow, we will know. I feel like that’s like kind of the timeline we’re working with. I would agree. I feel like we’re kind of in there. And I wasn’t trying to throw you under the bus by saying and it’s such a weird Can we zoom out for a sec? Isn’t it weird that we’re talking about this thing that we know is going to happen? It’s like we know we know what this is. They’re going to stretch and wave him. There’s no mystery behind what they’re doing, the amount of money, like all that kind of stuff. Like all the particulars have been completely reported. It’s just a matter of it happening finally. Like we know this is going to happen. Is that closure? Is that why is it just cuz we just want closure on this story? It is because you’re right. Like not this story. This season. Get it out of my life forever. This is the last thing I need to be free of this stupid season that I had to cover. With all due respect to the great job that I have and the unmeasurable amount of respect that I have for basketball and the opportunity that I got to cover it, but don’t be ungrateful. I know a lot of people in that building were over it. I was over it, too, man. I was really over it, too. And I’m ready to be freed from that and fully move into this next era of Suns basketball. It has a lot of exciting optimistic turns that it could take, but not until they get this done. Yeah. And I think for me the reason why I’m anticipating I I respect your because I know you you’re down there every day and you work hard and Gerald works hard and you know all the all the people who cover the team every single day. It’s been a rough couple of years. I get that. I think for me it’s a little different. I I want this story to end because I want to see what’s next. And and honestly that’s part of what the info that Gambo passed along to me this morning when he texted me that I think and I told him this. I I texted him back and I said, “This is the thing that caught my attention more than anything.” He said to me that it’s going to happen today or tomorrow. And and I’m and by the way, I’m allowed to pass this information along. Gambo said, “Yes, you can. I I communicated with him today. You can pass this along. It’s going to happen today or tomorrow. When it does happen, they will sign a guard.” Okay? That would be the 14th roster spot. They they will sign a guard and in his words, “And then they’re done.” M and that’s the part about it that you know that like really popped out to me the most and then they’re done because I was wondering not a lot but a little low-key. I was wondering is there some sort of of a of another trade coming now they’re out of the second apron and now they can aggregate now they can put contracts together and make a move. this roster looks horribly imbalanced right now. Like like unfeasible in terms of how unbalanced it is. And the and I I asked for you clarification. I said, “And they’re done.” And he’s like, “And they’re done.” And that they’ll sign a guard. And by the way, he said, “Not CP3 and not Russell Westbrook and not Malcolm Brogden. A guard.” He didn’t say who, just not one of those three guys. Well, those are three fun names, though. Haven’t they haven’t the Suns considered how that’s fun? If if if there’s Isn’t there anything that you’ve learned from this year that sometimes it’s just not fun? Sometimes it’s information. We even debated whether we should play don’t fear the reaper because he said it’s not going to be one of and I’m like I just I can’t do that shnick without him. I I it would feel wrong and weird to play don’t fear the reaper without Gambo sitting in that seat. But the and they’re done. Now I want to I want to qualify this before you say what you’re going to say about it by saying once upon a time we thought the Phoenix Suns were done. building their roster and about a week before training camp they traded DeAndre Aiden to the Portland Trailblazers and they weren’t done. So there is understand that done is negotiable, right? Like done is yeah, we’re done for now, but we might not be done later, but for now it would suggest that they’re done. What do you think about that? Don’t think they should be done, Bernzie. I think there’s a lot more work to be done. Okay, I’ll use done in that facet instead. Kind of what I thought, too. I don’t think they should be done either. The tea leaves that are really interesting here. If you weren’t listening to today’s show or yesterday’s show, I’ll refresh you if you were listening to yesterday’s show. uh son’s Twitter friend, colleague, Australian correspondent for Empire of the Suns, David, also known as at the four-point play, tweeted out some of his cap figures. He’s got all the cap minutia down and something that he pointed out and he tends to know things from time to time. So, when he had it down in his cap sheet, as they’ve got 14 players, one of them’s on the veterans minimum and then they’re done. It seems like David kind of knows something that’s going on a little bit as well. He reported that if they signed that 14th guy to the veterans minimum, like they do, they wave and stretch Chris Paul for the amount that is expected, they would be only $4,000 under the luxury tax. $4,000. That’s it. So, if you’re asking why wouldn’t they sign a 15th guy? Why wouldn’t they do all this trades? They could do trades, but those could move those numbers a little bit. And we mentioned the value that is there for getting out of the tax for at least a year. These not the apron, the tax, the tax. They would be way under both the aprons. They’d be clear on both the aprons, but the tax has these repeating penalties that multiply and just get cancerous, which is how quickly they can really spread and getting out of them for a year or two years is valuable. This is not me defending the decision. I don’t think this is what they should be doing. I think that they really need to do everything in their power to completely reshape this roster. They’re about 40% done. There’s over half of the work still to go and they’re looking at a very imbalanced roster right now, but it appears that their priorities are in another place. At least for now. At least with the information that we have right now, we’re ready to be wrong about that. But at least for now, it appears to be let’s get away from the second apron for these penalties. Let’s get away from the tax for these penalties and we’ve got our basketball team. And and look, and we know clearly there’s a willingness from Matt Ishbia to to live in the tax space, to live in the apron space. I don’t I don’t think there’s any fear or hesitation to do it, but you’ve got to have the right reasons to do it. And this this this slice of time, this moment in history is not the right time to do it for at least from their thinking, I can understand why they might be looking at it that way. Because if I’m understanding you correctly, by breaking the cycle of constantly being in the tax, even if you break that cycle for a year or two, you’re basically resetting your penalties for being a tax team back to zero, right? and you’re taking away a lot of the real punitive stuff. Three out of violating the tax. It’s three out of four of the seasons where you are known as like repeat offenders and they and they keep going up and they keep going up. So you got to start that process somewhere. You got to start getting there. So maybe they’re just looking as as let’s get out of that loop, right? Like let’s get out of that loop so that I think they would need to do it for another year after this year if I’m looking at all the information correctly and understanding correctly, which with the CBA is rarely the case. I’m rarely correct about that if I’m being totally honest because the thing is impossible to understand why I rely on people like David and Gambo to get this information and relay it to us in that kind of way. But what I will say is you can read that however you want to. Their priorities are clear in terms of the penalties, the restrictions and again the second apron penalties. This is not like aggregating salaries and doing all these kinds of things with trades because remember the luxury tax numbers are at the end of the season. They are not at the beginning of the season. They would need to maintain this figure for the entire season as well. But for the record, if they are done, forget the tax for just a second. If they are done done, okay, and then like and there are there’s no like last minute DeAndre Eaton trade like there was a couple of years ago. Boy, this roster has no balance at all. I mean, you just look at it and go, man, that’s a lot of 6’5 guys, right? and too many centers and with too many too many sevenfooters, too many 6’5 guys and just this emptiness of 69 guys, 68 guys. Like where are they? You know, you just look at the roster go how are they going to play every single You got two, but the problem is those two aren’t any of your seven or eight or nine best players. That’s a problem. Yeah. 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.
It’s not a matter of if the Phoenix Suns will stretch-and-waive guard Bradley Beal, but when, guest host Kellan Olson explains to Dave Burns. The two take a look at why the end of the Beal era in Phoenix draws near and why fans deserve closure from this saga.
Summer Suns outmatched by Kings despite all 5 recent draft picks playing: https://arizonasports.com/nba/phoenix-suns/kings-5-draft-picks/3590231/
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