Bradley Beal’s no-trade clause a major roadblock in Suns’ future plans

Last offseason, Beal flirted with the Miami Heat, but the Heat reportedly insisted on Beal getting rid of his no-trade clause if he was traded to Miami. Beal apparently balked at that and ultimately found himself in Phoenix as part of a trade that included Chris Paul, No. 7 overall pick Bilal Coulibaly, and numerous future first-round pick swaps and second-round picks.

On the latest episode of the Hoop Collective, NBA insiders Brian Windhorst and Tim Bontemps discussed the no-trade clause and how it could cause issues for the Suns moving forward.

“OK, you do the deal, but Beal keeping the no-trade [clause], because he had to waive the no-trade clause to do the deal, and what you’d want there is the no-trade clause to go away,” Windhorst said before Bontemps interjected.

“Which, by the way, he could say, ‘I will just eliminate it.’ It was something that could have been done, it’s not like it wasn’t possible. It was his right, he had it in his contract, but he kept it,” Bontemps said.

“Yeah, and look, I mean, I get it, he kept it for this exact reason,” Windhorst said. “If it didn’t work out, he didn’t want to lose it, I mean, no fault to him and good job by his agent. But that hamstrings them. I guess you could trade Jusuf Nurkic; he makes $18 million, but there’s no value there.”

Was the Suns’ Bradley Beal trade a failure?

When the Phoenix Suns acquired Bradley Beal, the goal was obvious: win a championship. Mat Ishbia, who agreed to buy the team from Robert Sarver in December 2022, immediately proved to be aggressive in pursuits of bringing a first NBA Championship to Phoenix; just months after the sale, Ishbia spearheaded a trade for former NBA MVP Kevin Durant that shipped out multiple first-round picks, as well as young players such as Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson.

The big trade did not result in a Phoenix championship parade in 2023, in part due to Durant’s injuries, which limited him to just eight regular-season games with the Suns. In the postseason, Durant and Booker led the Suns to a five-game series victory over the Los Angeles Clippers before running into the eventual NBA Champions, the Denver Nuggets. Despite another strong series by Booker and Durant, no other Suns player averaged 11 points per game in the series, which Phoenix lost 4-2.

The Suns tried to make another big trade with the Beal acquisition, hoping that adding another former 30-point scorer would lift the team to a championship. Beal’s own injuries, as well as the lack of depth from which the Suns suffer as a result of multiple trades for highly paid star players, likely limited the potential ceiling for the 2023-24 Suns, though.

But even if the Suns lose in the first round to Minnesota, which is likely with how the first two games have gone, it is hard to say Phoenix’s trade for Beal is a failure. Beal was essentially traded for Chris Paul, who played just a handful more games than Beal did and will turn 39 next month.

All is not lost yet anyway, as Phoenix will host the Timberwolves for Games 3 and 4. If the Suns can win one of those two games, they will force a Game 5 back in Minnesota next week.