TO SAY THE Phoenix Suns’ deal for Bradley Beal last offseason hasn’t worked out the way either side wanted would be an understatement.
They were swept in the first round of the playoffs last spring, and are now ninth in the Western Conference, despite a run of eight wins in their past 11 games. But that all-in move has left Phoenix in a difficult position. Any trade it might attempt to make a major change to the roster — without giving up cornerstone stars Devin Booker and Kevin Durant — would require Beal’s approval, because he has a no-trade clause. And Beal and his agent have said publicly they have no intention of waiving it.
This presupposes that the trade for Beal is the original roster construction problem in Phoenix that must be solved — that under the new collective bargaining agreement, building a team around three max salary players, one of whom is performing far below a max level, is untenable.
But if Beal doesn’t change his mind and agree to waive his no-trade clause — to go to Miami, Milwaukee or any number of destinations that would bring back players that could help the Suns — that problem cannot be solved.
Add in the restrictions for being over the second apron and Phoenix’s problem becomes a complicated mess, one that won’t have an easy fix ahead of the Feb. 6 NBA trade deadline.
DURANT WAS ASKED about the Suns’ conundrum a few weeks ago, after the team had moved Beal to the bench following a four-game losing streak that resulted in what sources described as an increasingly tense locker room.
Durant could’ve tried to put pressure on the organization. He has been through enough in his NBA career to know how to fan growing league speculation about his own happiness.
Instead, Durant offered what amounted to a defense of Suns owner Mat Ishbia and the team’s front office.
“It might not always work out perfectly the way you set it up. The way you envisioned,” Durant told reporters on Jan. 10. “But trying is better than doing nothing at all, right?
“I appreciate people that want to put in that work to try to get on that road to a championship level. It’s hard, as we’re seeing it’s tough. I can appreciate somebody like Mat and the staff and the whole organization trying to put the players in a successful position to see what it’s like to go on the road to win a championship. Not a lot of franchises do that for their players.”
Ishbia bought the Suns for a reported $4 billion during the 2022-23 season and immediately executed a blockbuster trade for Durant. Four months later, he exhausted what was left of the Suns’ tradable assets to bring Beal to Phoenix. Ishbia has spent close to $500 million the past two seasons in salary and luxury tax penalties. This year, the Suns are projected to pay a league-record $382 million in salary and luxury tax penalties.
Durant expressed his confidence in the team’s plan right at the start of a stretch in which the Suns won eight of 10 games. But that included wins over the rebuilding Utah Jazz, Charlotte Hornets, Washington Wizards (twice) and Brooklyn Nets. The road gets much more difficult from here, with what ESPN Analytics projects as the second-toughest remaining schedule in the NBA.
Those wins — in addition to moving the Suns back into the Western Conference play-in picture — did take some of the attention off the swirling drama regarding Phoenix and the saga playing out in Miami, where Phoenix is reportedly the preferred trade destination for disgruntled Heat star Jimmy Butler.
That alone made for an awkward situation for Beal. On Saturday, things got downright uncomfortable as Beal’s wife and children were heckled in the stands by an unruly fan.
“The breaking point came in the fourth … when the ‘fan’ yelled, ‘Trade this bum ass b***h Beal for Jimmy Butler!'” Beal’s wife Kamiah Adams-Beal wrote on social media. “My six-year-old, with tears in his eyes, asked why someone would say that about his dad. So at that point, security had to intervene, or I was going to.”
Beal saw the situation unfold during the game.
“All I see is my wife and my son crying on the front row and my wife turning around yelling at somebody,” Beal said. “That’s never good. Family comes before any of this basketball s—.”
These aren’t the types of moments Ishbia hoped for when assembling his star trio. In fact, adding Durant and Beal has led to exactly one combined playoff game win over the past two seasons. (Dating to his time with the Wizards, Beal hasn’t advanced beyond the first round of the playoffs since 2017.)
But even adding Butler, who led the Heat to the Finals just two seasons ago, would not guarantee to get the Suns that far for the first time since 2021. Plus, to trade for the six-time All-Star, Phoenix would have to pull off the salary cap equivalent of a quadruple axle.
THE SECOND APRON heavily limits Phoenix’s options to improve at the trade deadline.
The Suns are restricted from aggregating contracts — for example, they cannot combine the contracts of Jusuf Nurkic and Grayson Allen to bring back a single player making a larger salary — and cannot use more than 100% of the traded player exception, meaning they have to send out equal or more salary than they acquire.
Their only big trade component — outside of Durant and Booker, neither of whom has expressed any desire to be moved — is Beal’s $50.2 million salary.
But Beal is owed an additional $111 million beyond this season, and would be allowed to carry his no-trade clause to his next team (just as he did to Phoenix when he agreed to be traded to the Suns). Because of that, sources said, the Heat aren’t interested in acquiring Beal.
So any deal to bring Butler to Phoenix would have to involve a third or fourth team — a destination that Beal would have to approve. And right now, Beal and his agent say they have no intention of changing their stance.
“Brad worked really hard to earn a no-trade clause. We earned it and we have it — and it is really valuable,” Beal’s agent Mark Bartelstein told ESPN. “Does that mean that he would never, ever accept a trade? No. You always have an open mind and you always are willing to listen to things that you think might be great.
“But at this time, there’s nothing we’re considering. His entire energy and focus is on helping the Suns win. So all of this speculation that people keep writing about is really just people using their imagination.”
ESPN talked to multiple team executives who said Beal not eliminating his no-trade clause is a deal-breaker in a trade.
All of which brings the Suns back to the one question that will continue to linger over the franchise now and the future: How does Phoenix fix a .500 team that blew past the NBA’s punitive second apron to trade for three superstars in pursuit of a championship?
The answer, in some ways, has already started to take shape, as the Suns have taken a different approach than when Ishbia first bought the team and quickly added Durant and Beal. The cost to acquire both players was four unprotected first-round draft picks, the right to swap firsts in five years and seven seconds.
“Phoenix needs to get away from chasing All-Stars,” an Eastern Conference executive told ESPN. “The current CBA is built on hitting singles, doubles, and Ishbia has to let the basketball people do their job.”
Since the 2024 draft, Phoenix has made five trades, improving the roster and building up draft capital lost in previous trades.
The Suns moved back six spots in the first round in a trade with Denver. They would go on to acquire Ryan Dunn and pick up three future second-rounders. Dunn got off to a hot start this season, shooting 40% from 3 over his first 10 games, but has shot just 29% beyond the arc since then.
Phoenix traded the No. 56 pick and a 2028 second-rounder from Boston for the draft rights to Oso Ighodaro, who supplanted Nurkic in the rotation and had been averaging 24 minutes for a stretch before the Suns added Nick Richards from Charlotte.
In August, they traded David Roddy to Atlanta for E.J. Liddell. The trade lowered the Suns’ tax bill by $4.9 million.
The three seconds acquired in the Dunn draft-night trade were then sent to the Hornets for Richards, who is averaging 11.8 points and 11.2 rebounds since joining the Suns. The trade reduced their tax penalty by $20 million. Richards is on a $5 million non-guaranteed salary for next season.
The big risk came when Phoenix traded their lone first-round pick available in 2031 to Utah, bringing back three (albeit lesser, heavily protected) first-round picks to use in trades before next week’s trade deadline or afterward. The Suns now have six first-round picks over the next seven years but are allowed to trade a maximum of three.
League sources expect the Suns to use at least one of those picks to entice a team to trade for Nurkic, who has fallen out of the rotation and admitted he has “no relationship” with coach Mike Budenholzer.
But the original problem, if the trade for Beal is indeed the root cause of the Suns’ underachievement, still remains and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Beal’s 16.9 points per game are his lowest since 2014-15, and he has dropped to just 14.7 points in his bench role.
Bobby Marks explains why the Suns exchanged a 2031 first-round pick for three first-round picks from the Jazz.
Because of his massive salary, combined with those for Booker and Durant, Phoenix projects to be over the second apron and probably will spend $500 million in salary and tax penalties once the roster is filled out for 2025-26.
The Suns’ 2032 first-round pick is set to become frozen because the team is over the second apron this year, meaning it won’t have access to a valuable trade asset. If the Suns finish over the second apron in 2025-26, their 2033 first also becomes untradeable.
PHOENIX HAS PIVOTED from the situation as best it can, hoping changes at the margins will be enough to keep Durant happy and giving public votes of confidence.
That won’t stop teams from calling to inquire about Durant’s availability. Durant did not sign a one-year, $59.5 million extension in October, but there have been no warning signs that he will ask out. Teams that have called have thus far been rebuffed, league sources said.
“Kevin wants to be here, we want Kevin here,” Ishbia told ESPN in November. “There’s never been one grumbling or anything different.
“You can’t sign a two-year extension this last summer, you can’t do it based on the NBA rules. So we figured after the season we’ll talk about it, take care of it. Durant becomes eligible to sign a two-year, $124 million extension starting the first day after the NBA Finals conclude, and has up until June 30, 2026 to sign it. Otherwise, he’ll become a free agent.”
The Suns have also rebuffed teams bold enough to inquire about Booker, who is 100 points away from becoming the franchise’s all-time leading scorer. Booker has never given any indication he’d leave Phoenix in pursuit of a championship if this current construction doesn’t pan out, team sources said. He remains under contract through 2027-28.
But Booker’s loyalty is about the only solid footing the Suns are on.
The playoffs will again test Ishbia’s resolve and whether he is willing to continue his unprecedented spending on an underachieving roster. What will happen if Phoenix loses in the first round a third consecutive season? Or misses the playoffs entirely for the first time since 2020?
Would Ishbia pivot and reset the roster? He certainly didn’t give any indication sweeping changes were on the table last April after the Suns were swept by Minnesota.
“Let’s be real — ask the other 29 GMs [in the NBA], 26 of them would trade their whole team for our whole team and our draft picks as is,” Ishbia said. “It’s not hard to fix. We have enough talent to win a championship.”
As long as Durant is still supportive, that might well be the case. How long that lasts is the real question.
Source: espn.com