The Phoenix Suns dealing for Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal would be one of the league’s most strange and unconventional trades.
According to Shams Charania of The Athletic, the Suns have “emerged as a serious threat” to Beal, which makes sense given how both teams got to this point.
That is what we must prioritise first.
Beal is one season into a five-year, $251 million supermax contract, a technique instituted by the NBA to provide organisations a greater chance of keeping their franchise player with significantly more money than other possible bidders.
The problem is, well, it’s a lot more money. While it made sense for the Wizards to do anything they could to retain Beal, a year later, with a new front staff, Washington may be seeking to rebuild. According to Charania, Beal would want out if that’s the case.
As a result, the Wizards must now find a trade partner for the sixth-highest payroll in the league next season. While Beal is one of the league’s finest scorers, he turns 30 later this month and has missed 90 games in the past two seasons due to season-ending ailments. He’s still a good basketball player, but he’s more of a second banana on a competitive team, and assessors lower on him would argue otherwise. Bringing in Beal for an average salary of $52 million over the next four years is why his trade value is uncertain.
Worse, Washington granted Beal a no-trade clause, which means he will be allowed to choose where he wants to play.
That is how the Suns could potentially get a top-30 player for one of Deandre Ayton or Chris Paul, plus Landry Shamet. More on the possibilities in a moment.
The Suns’ first response is to wonder why Phoenix would position itself to have a Big 3 with absolutely no trustworthy supporting cast. Furthermore, depending only on luck with veteran’s minimum free agent acquisitions to fill out the balance of the team.
However, the Suns are already in a precarious situation.
As discussed in Empire of the Suns’ simulated offseason workouts, what Phoenix does with Ayton and Paul will decide how much depth it can add on its roster. If the Suns do nothing between now and July 1, they will be limited to signing veterans at the veteran’s minimum. That will never happen.
Waiving and stretching Paul opens up the non-taxpayer midlevel exception ($12.2 million) and biannual exception ($4.5 million), while moving Ayton for two to three players who might fit into the rotation. However, it is far better in theory than the actual final result. The four final rosters from the simulated offseasons demonstrated this.
As is customary this time of year after the NBA Finals, team-building examples are drawn from the two teams involved. Yes, Phoenix should look for its own versions of the Denver Nuggets’ Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Aaron Gordon to compliment Devin Booker and Kevin Durant. However, the Suns are unlikely to find role players as excellent as Denver’s duo for the money they have.
So, is Beal truly their best option? He may be, particularly if Ayton’s trade value is poor.
To facilitate an offence, Beal, Booker, and Durant would need to build synergy as a ball-handling hydra. Both Booker and Beal are two-guards, but Booker has developed into one of the finest point guards in the world. Durant and Beal have both spent significant time initiating throughout the years. To avoid the dilemma of too many cooks in the kitchen, it would again rely on the feel the three found for both what each other and the offence needs at any given moment. That is the often-overlooked value of a point guard.
But if they could go that far, and there are many reasons to believe they can, it would be an unstoppable offence. They’re all fantastic three-point scorers and shooters. Remember those open looks Durant put up for Booker? Multiply it by ten with Beal on their side.
Defensively, it would depend on Booker embracing the task he essentially accepted when Durant came. He rose to become Phoenix’s second-best defender in the starting lineup, guarding in higher-leverage situations against teammates. He breezed through the examination. Beal would also have to take strides forward in his own right.
The Suns would also have to find a way to pull a 3-and-D wing out of their hat. The possibilities are limited, and now that we’ve discussed how we got here, it’s time to figure out how we’re going to get there.
According to Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report, if Beal makes his way to Phoenix, Washington would choose Paul and Shamet over Ayton and Shamet.
When it comes to Phoenix’s departing payroll, Paul’s partly guaranteed $30.8 million for next season means the Wizards would have to take on virtually all of that.
Aside from that, Paul very certainly does not want to play in Washington next season. Would the Wizards be okay with releasing Paul and absorbing all of his salary as dead money this season? That would limit the move to a long-term salary dump to get rid of Beal’s money. A waive-and-stretch of Paul makes little sense for a rebuilding club like Washington, as it would cost more than $6 million each season for the next five years.
Ayton, as the departing component, fits considerably better. As Haynes implies, Washington may not even appreciate a competent but inconsistent soon-to-be 25-year-old centre in the long run. Perhaps it would prefer to have the cap space. However, it may not have a choice.
What about Dillon Brooks? It’s difficult to find a match beyond him. Would Bruce Brown accept a wage cut in advance of the largest payoff of his career?
Assume all of this occurs. The needle in the haystack, as described by Arizona Sports’ Burns & Gambo, has been located. After that, they thread it.
There is still the possibility of long-term disadvantages.
For the following three seasons, Beal, Booker, and Durant will earn a total of $130.4 million, $151.4 million, and $162.4 million, respectively.
According to The Athletic’s John Hollinger, the NBA intends to ease it in over the following two seasons. Some of the penalties include: no taxpayer midlevel exemption, inability to utilise cash in trades, aggregate contracts in trades, trading more money than it is taking back, and incurring an even more severe tax penalty. The most severe penalty is those clubs who finish in the second tier two years in a row or more will have their first-round choice shifted to the end of the first round.
It’s difficult to imagine it was allowed in the first place. But it happened. So practically every organisation will avoid that second apron, but one may say “screw it” and look beyond the danger in favour of the payoff, taking advantage of acquiring a fantastic player on a bloated deal for pennies.
Which of these seems like new Suns owner Mat Ishbia to you, given what we know about him?
By all accounts and reports, he was the man who got the Durant trade done, simply ignoring how audacious it was in favour of his basic philosophy on how it made the Suns stronger and boosted their chances of winning a championship.
This certainly feels like that. And maybe it truly is as easy as that.
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