The Phoenix Suns made arguably the worst move of the offseason by agreeing to a contract buyout with Bradley Beal.
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The Suns opted to let the three-time All-Star sign elsewhere, and eat the remaining nearly $100 million of his contract. Beal agreed to a two-year, $11 million deal with the Los Angeles Clippers soon after the Suns bought him out.
“He’s a great guy,” Suns owner Mat Ishbia said in July. “Just not a fit with the Phoenix Suns going forward. We told him that. We made that decision. We let them know we wanted to move forward without him. It doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy. It doesn’t mean he’s a bad player.”
While the move gave the team financial flexibility by taking them out of the second apron and provided them with more access to more tradable draft picks, Bleacher Report’s Dan Favale criticized the Suns for the contract buyout.
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“Phoenix is paying Beal to play for the Los Angeles Clippers to…lower its tax bill,” Favale writes.
“Getting out of the second apron is a big deal for the Suns—and not just because it saves team governor Mat Ishbia some serious scratch. It helps ensure their 2032 pick is eventually unfrozen and won’t be moved to the end of the first round. But if you view setting $19.4 million on fire for five consecutive years as the only way to elude the second apron, something’s off.
“It’s one thing if Phoenix did this to pave the way for another big move. It didn’t. Devin Booker’s extension doesn’t count. The Suns added a whopping one guaranteed year of team control to the equation, and given they’re still on the fast track nowhere post-Beal, he was clearly going to sign it no matter what.”
Throughout his two seasons in the Valley of the Sun, Beal averaged 17.6 points, 4.3 assists and 3.8 rebounds per game while shooting 50.5 percent from the field and 40.7 percent from beyond the arc.
Now, Beal will begin a new chapter of his career with the Clippers, a team that is a contender in the Western Conference. The 32-year-old is poised to be a great fit for LA alongside Kawhi Leonard and James Harden as a playmaker and scorer for the Clippers.
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