Bobby Marks on Bradley Beal’s contract buyout 🏀 What it means for the Suns & Clippers | NBA on ESPN

Bobby Marks on Bradley Beal’s contract buyout 🏀 What it means for the Suns & Clippers | NBA on ESPN

All right, greetings from Las Vegas. Hopefully everyone is uh doing great. This is day eight for me in uh in Las Vegas here. We’ve got sports business classroom going on. It’s been uh we’ve knocked it out of the park so far and we’ve got a couple more days left of great programming that uh we have available. Uh but we are here to talk about the Bradley Beal uh buyout and waiver and then stretch and kind of how it impacts um Phoenix and certainly the Clippers who um he has in principle agreed to uh sign with the Sun uh the Clippers once he clears waiverss. I think the most important thing is is that this situation, although Beiel’s money will be waved and stretched, the Suns have until August 31st to do it, is different than the Damen Lillard situation in Milwaukee where Lillard was waved and stretched. However, he did not go through the buyout process here. And why that was allowed was because by doing it, Milwaukee was not exceeding the 15% amount you’re capped at. As far as from the wave and stretch dead money, you are you’re not allowed to exceed 15% of the salary cap and stretched money. And with um with with Lillard in Milwaukee by doing it, that did not exceed that. In the situation of Bradley Beal, Bradley Beal had a lot of control over the situation. He basically could have said, “Nope, I’m not doing anything here.” Because Phoenix already had roughly $4 million in dead money with Nir Little and EJ Liddell. Beal had to take roughly 139 $13.9 million and reduce the $111 million that he’s owed and then stretch that amount and then you get right to that 15%. So, in the end, if Beal does not take the buyout, he is still on the roster in uh in Phoenix. I’m just pulling up my notes here. The buyout, as we said, he has two years left. He had two years left on his contract. That no trade now goes away. Um, you take the two years and you add uh you multiply it by two. Don’t ask me why we have this formula. You multiply it by two and then you add one. The amount of the owed amount, I’m pulling it up, is then stretched over five seasons. In the case of uh in the case of Bradley Beal, it’s roughly $19.4 million. That money will sit on your books for the next five years. There is no set off because this is a buyout. So that money is there for the next five years. As I said, Phoenix has up until August 31st to go about waving. Uh as far as stretching him, I would say the it is highly likely that is that is going to be the case. You don’t do a buyout and a stretch. um and um and then not basically stretch that money out for Phoenix. Welcome back to uh NBA reality. Welcome back out of financial purgatory. Um we put a chart up. It basically now unlocks a lot of things and I know the dead money is going to be sitting there. You are 32 million over luxury tax. You had a $176 million tax penalty. You were repeater tax. You were over the apron. You were over the second apron. 26 and 14. Now, what has happened? Voila. You are now um a little bit under the luxury tax. The likelihood is that you’ll probably go over. Remember, that doesn’t get calculated till after the season. You are you have no tax penalty for now. You are $8.6 million below the apron one and 21 almost $21 million below the second apron. You are now have the ability to use more than 100% of your traded player exception, take back more money in a deal. As long as the post-transactional salary does not exceed the cap, you now have, congratulations. You have the ability to aggregate contracts, which something you did not have, you can use up to roughly uh 8.6 million of your non- tax mid-level exception. Remember, if you use more than 5.7, that hardcaps you at the first apron. If you don’t want to get hardcapped at the first apron, you do have the ability to assign a player to the $5.7 million um tax submit level exception. you are in financial out of as I said financial purgatory. Um you are in a position where basically you were had one door open. Now this opens up five more doors as far as from a flexibility standpoint. You can go out and try to get a player in a signing trade and you still have the flexibility as long as you stay below that first apron. That is the good news. Here’s a little bit. We talked about the um the second round pick uh first round pick sorry your first round pick in 2000 2032 remains frozen. Okay, that is because you finished over the second apron in 2024 25. How that becomes unfrozen is basically you’re going to have to wait about 3 years. If you finish under the second apron in 2526 26 27 and 27 28 or three out of the four salary cap years, your 32 pick becomes unfrozen. that would be the first year it would trigger it would be in 2028. So you are still operating however that your pick is now um that is still um frozen here. Remember we work in a seven-year window as far as from a draft pick perspective here. Um so that is it in in Phoenix here. Certainly as we said opens up the flexibility as far as how you are able to operate but you do have incur that dead money here. U we have an apron piece up on ESPN. It’s called the education of the apron. Um, and there’s a reason why Bradley Beiel, Kevin Durant, uh, Damen Lillard, Porzingis, and Drew Holiday have all been waved or traded or bought out. Um, because all these teams kind of jumped ahead of the line before these new rules started in 2023 off off season and are now paying the consequences as a result of that. And you can also go in there and read about Oklahoma City, Denver, Orlando, um, Houston, New York. I think it’s a really enlightening piece. Certainly, we go into depth on the Thunder as far as where they are positionally, which is in really good shape. Uh, we certainly have done a lot on the apron, but I would go on ESPN.com. As far as the clips, um, the clips clips clips. So, they had $5.3 million left of their um tax a non-taxman level exception. Remember, um roughly uh 8.8 of that was used on Brook Lopez. They are using that to sign Bradley Beal to a two-year deal um with a player option in year two. He becomes a who could become a free agent in a better marketplace next off season. Um, it’s going to be interesting because we’re going to get to a point in um in uh February where people are going to be like, man, that Bradley Beal contract at $5 million, that’s a great value here. Um, when you look at certainly a lot of interchangeable parts as far as where the Clippers are when you can go Harden Beal, Leonard, Colin, Zubac, and then you have Vonovic, Christy Dunn as your back court. Um, you still have Nick Batum and Derek Jones and Brook Lopez. This team has certainly um my zoom just lost you. This Clipper team has certainly got um here we are. This Clipper team has certainly gotten better in this off seasonason here. They are roughly $4 million below the first apron. They are still in pretty good position here moving forward. U and they do have flexibility to add a player there. Um so that is kind of a little bit of the wave and stretch provision. I’m going on NBA TV and uh NBA I keep on saying NBA TV today in about 25 minutes. you can watch. Um, we’ve got that great article up on educating the apron. We’ll probably do a video on it down the road. Uh, but that is it. Hopefully everyone is great and we will talk soon. [Music] me with the heat. I’m on fire on me.

Bobby Marks weighs in on the news that three-time NBA All-Star Bradley Beal has agreed to a contract buyout with the Phoenix Suns and plans to join the LA Clippers on a two-year, $11 million deal with a player option after he clears waivers.
#ESPN #NBA

☑️ Subscribe to ESPN+: https://plus.espn.com/​​​​​
📱Get the ESPN App: http://www.espn.com/espn/apps/espn​​​​​
🏀 Subscribe to NBA on ESPN on YouTube: http://bit.ly/2yxs3Og​​​​​
☑️Subscribe to ESPN on YouTube: http://es.pn/SUBSCRIBEtoYOUTUBE​​​​​
☑️Watch ESPN on YouTube TV: http://es.pn/YouTubeTV​​