Trade & FA 2024-25:

[SleepingHero]

Beal has a no-trade clause. 

Pure, hypothetical speculation here, and not even what I'm predicting, honestly, but...if you were the Suns and had buyer's remorse on a $50 million player with a no trade clause, would bringing him off the bench make him want to be traded? 

Then again, could you trade him, even if it's what he wanted? He's not worth that contract to anyone else, either. 

Again, for all I know they still really like Beal (though I wouldn't).

The flip side to that strategy is that you blow up what little team chemistry those guys have left and you have Beal protest every game he's out there. Too risky especially since even if you wanted to trade Beal, you couldn't do it on your terms. 

I just can't reconcile bringing a guy making 50 mil off the bench in favor for a role player (who on paper shouldn't be better than Beal at all). There are locker room dynamics at play here, cause you're basically admitting to everyone in that room that Beal isn't worth 20 mil a year and you don't really want him there.

I think the more likely and safe scenario is that you take Beal off early in the 1st and just bring him back with the 2nd unit in the 2nd. That way you avoid this whole who starts nonsense anyways. 


FWIW, PHX Suns fans on their realGM board really do think last year's failures were more a product of injuries and lack of a point guard. Not too outlandish of a thought. PHX just fixed the PG problem and you have to hope all 3 of those guys remain healthy cause as a PHX fan if they do you are a very strong team. 

I don't think they'll be a top 3 team in the West just due to depth and health issues, but they will be a force in the playoffs (if we take PHX fans' homer take at face value).