What does Bradley Beal bring t...

When word began circulating last week that the under-new-management Washington Wizards might actually be ready to move longtime standard-bearer Bradley Beal, most of the immediate reaction focused on finances. You can understand why: The three-time All-Star guard owns the second-richest contract in the NBA, behind only newly minted champion Nikola Jokić, and one of only seven deals with an average annual value north of $50 million per year.

That gargantuan pact figured to make finding a new home for Beal exceptionally tricky, especially under a new collective bargaining agreement set to impose increasingly severe penalties on teams that run payrolls significantly above the luxury tax line. That Beal also owns the NBA’s only (and, I’d hazard a guess, its last) full no-trade clause, enabling him to refuse any swap that would land him in a destination he doesn’t like — a clause that would remain part of his contract on his next team — seemed to complicate matters even further.

As it turned out, the size and strictures of Beal’s deal didn’t make moving it harder. It actually simplified things.

The no-trade clause allowed Beal to pick his landing spot. He reportedly would’ve chosen either the Miami Heat or Phoenix Suns; according to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald, the Heat (perhaps preferring to keep their powder dry for an even bigger target who may hit the market) never made the Wizards an offer that Washington liked better than the one on the table from Phoenix. That left the Suns, who already employed two megawatt talents in Devin Booker and Kevin Durant, and whose CEO, Josh Bartelstein, is the son of Beal’s longtime agent, Mark Bartelstein. With the destination selected and Beal holding the veto, then, all that was left to determine was his price tag; it doesn’t seem like there was much haggling.

The Wizards’ return for a three-time All-Star they’d just given a quarter-billion-dollar supermax contract is poised to be Chris Paul, Landry Shamet, “at least four second-round draft picks and multiple pick swaps,” likely to come in 2024 and 2026. (Brooklyn controls Phoenix’s first-round selections in 2023, 2025, 2027, 2028 and 2029 from the February blockbuster that landed Durant in the desert.) That package highlights how little leverage Washington had with Beal and Bartelstein holding all the cards, and how much new team president Michael Winger and Co. valued shedding the $150.6 million that Beal is guaranteed to make over the next three seasons, as well as his $57.1 million player option for 2026-27.

There’s plenty of movement and plenty of decisions still to come — chief among them, whether Paul ever suits up in the District or is promptly rerouted for more draft picks, young players and/or salary-cap flexibility, and the futures of Kristaps Porziņģis and Kyle Kuzma, both of whom hold player options for next season and can exercise them to enter unrestricted free agency on June 30. (Kuzma made it clear months ago that he’s going to do just that; Porzingis is “considering picking up his $36 million player option,” according to Yahoo Sports senior NBA reporter Jake Fischer.) For the moment, though, the only Wizard with a guaranteed, non-rookie-scale contract that extends past the end of next season is center Daniel Gafford, on the ledger for just $14.4 million in 2025-26. As David Aldridge of The Athletic put it: “The Wizards wanted to have all Beal Business off of their books in 12 months. Mission accomplished.”

For Washington, then, the Beal move is a franchise that’s had a nagging cold for the past half-dozen years taking its medicine — a hard swallow of a bitter pill, with an eye toward a hoped-for healthier tomorrow. The Suns, on the other hand, clearly aren’t all that worried about tomorrow.

Here's what Bradley Beal's game gives the Suns

After paying $4 billion for a franchise that made the NBA Finals in 2021, posted the league’s best record in 2022 and suffered an embarrassing home-court elimination at the hands of Luka Dončić and the Dallas Mavericks, Mat Ishbia immediately forked over every first-round draft pick he could for Durant … before suffering another embarrassing home-court elimination (this time at the hands of Jokić and the eventual champion Denver Nuggets) and firing head coach Monty Williams. Ishbia wants to win huge today, and he’s willing to pay through the nose if he thinks the deal gets him closer to making that happen. His eagerness to swing this trade despite the fiscal complications suggests that it might be worth re-evaluating what Beal brings to the table besides that hefty contract.

Beal demands defensive attention all over the court, has rarely shared the floor with teammates of commensurate offensive talent since Wall was waylaid by injuries and has still produced. In a slightly lower-usage role on a team featuring higher-end offensive threats capable of turning some of his low-efficiency pull-up 3s into higher-quality spot-up shots — like, say, Booker and Durant — it’s reasonable to think that his output and efficiency might play up even more. The Suns netted that player for the price of a 38-year-old point guard who’s sustained injuries in seven of his past nine postseason appearances — and who they were reportedly thinking hard about waiving outright — plus a fine-enough reserve guard who didn’t crack 1,000 minutes for the Suns last season. Doesn’t seem too bad!

The flaws that Bradley Beal brings to the Suns

That doesn’t mean there aren’t valid on-court concerns. As we’ve mentioned, Beal has often been a … well, let’s say indifferent defender in recent years, struggling to stick with his man around screens and rarely exhibiting consistent effort on that end of the floor. The hope would be that, if surrounded by quality defenders in an environment where spotty energy and sloppy execution aren’t tolerated, Beal’s want-to would revert to the level he showed during Washington’s second-round playoff runs in 2015 and 2017, when he looked the part of a legit two-way postseason performer capable of leveling up when the stakes get raised.

That was a long time ago, though, and hope in and of itself isn’t a plan. Vogel likely has his work cut out for him in crafting a championship-caliber defense.

With so little salary cap space, without a taxpayer midlevel exception after going over the second apron, and with hardly any draft picks through the end of the decade, finding that credible player won’t be easy; you don’t typically find postseason-caliber contributors willing to take minimum-salaried contracts. The trade is a gamble, and a massive one, entered into willingly by a team with a blinders-on focus on winning next season, “flexibility five years down the road” be damned. Maybe it’s not how you’d run your 2K franchise. There’s something to be said, though, for Ishbia and his front office deciding to get busy living rather than fretting over the sticker price.

Beal might be a second- or third-banana making superstar money. The Suns are betting, though, that he might also be good enough to be the missing piece that completes a championship-caliber picture. For a franchise that has never reached the top of the mountain, that would be priceless.