Phoenix chose 5 years of dead cap over 2 years of Bradley Beal. Here’s why it makes sense

The Bradley Beal buyout is bad. But perhaps it’s not as bad as you think.

Bradley Beal. A great person. A good player. An absolutely catastrophic contract. And now, the most expensive financial blunder in Phoenix Suns history.

The team has officially bought him out for $96.9 million. Let that number sit for a second.

Per Zillow, the average home price in Phoenix is $418,453. With $96.9 million, you could buy 231 homes. Or 193 brand-new 2025 Ford F-150 Lariats to park in each of their garages. And if you needed to repaint those homes, Rhino Exterior House Painting charges roughly $1.55 per square foot (give them a call at 602-488-4895 for your free estimate today!). With that buyout money, you could paint 30,218,750 square feet of walls.

All to pay someone not to play basketball for you.

The Suns will stretch that buyout over five years, committing $19.4 million annually through 2030 for a player no longer on the roster. That’s a half-decade of dead cap. A half-decade of financial constraint. A half-decade reminder of one of the worst decisions the franchise has ever made.

And all of it, signed off for the sake of flexibility. Whatever comes next better be worth it.

I’ve stood on both sides of this debate. Back in March, I was one of the voices suggesting that buying out and stretching Bradley Beal might actually be the most logical path forward. But in recent days, especially after seeing how the Suns navigated the draft, I found myself shifting. I believed it was in the best interest of the organization to hold onto Beal for at least one more year.

The Suns aren’t built to win a championship this season. That much is clear. And with that reality in mind, keeping Beal gave them the chance to re-evaluate his market next summer, hoping that both his value and his willingness to explore options would align in a more productive way. It felt like the smarter play. Don’t turn a two-year problem into a five-year one.

But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what I think. It doesn’t matter how I justify it from the outside looking in.

What matters is what the Suns’ front office believes is best. They’re the ones in the trenches, living and breathing this decision from within the locker room, in the film rooms, and during the day-to-day grind of building a basketball team at the professional level.

So while I don’t necessarily agree with the decision, I can understand it.

Because when you really step back and look at it, paying Bradley Beal $96.9 million to not be on your team, and absorbing that financial hit across five years, might be preferable to keeping him on the roster for the next two.

And here’s why.

A Fractured Relationship

It’s easy for us to sit behind keyboards and debate what’s best for the organization. We see contracts and cap hits. They live relationships, personalities, and pressure. For us, it’s black-and-white numbers next to names. For them, it’s people. People with egos, pride, and expectations. And when those dynamics break down, the numbers stop mattering.

My assumption? At the heart of this decision is a fracture. The Suns and Bradley Beal have reached an impasse.

Much like last season, when Mike Budenholzer and Jusuf Nurkic struggled to see eye to eye, something fundamental between Beal and the organization feels broken. And if that’s the case, you can’t keep him around. You don’t keep him around.

Sure, on paper, it would’ve been great to have Beal stay for another year, mentoring young players, showing Jalen Green the ropes, offering his voice in the locker room. But that’s only possible if the relationship is still intact.

And from where I sit, this buyout isn’t just about cap flexibility or long-term planning. It’s about a relationship that soured beyond repair. And once that happens, no number — no matter how big — can fix it.

This isn’t new territory for Phoenix. Perhaps it’s time to look inward and ask why this keeps happening.

Jae Crowder. Deandre Ayton. Jusuf Nurkic. Now Bradley Beal.

The Suns are starting to build a troubling pattern: a growing list of players they haven’t managed well. Their inability to foster and nurture relationships, to build something collaborative, flexible, and sustainable, has cost them. It’s hurt their chemistry, their competitiveness, and their cap sheet.

So while we volley opinions back and forth about whether this move was the right one, the truth is, we’ll probably never know the full story. The hows and whys of this fractured relationship may never come to light.

But this move signals one thing loud and clear: whatever broke between Beal and the Suns, it was beyond repair. And when that happens, someone has to go.

Short Term Roster Flexibility

I know this isn’t what people want to hear. The idea of financial flexibility doesn’t exactly stir excitement, especially when $19.4 million of the Suns’ cap will be dedicated to Bradley Beal every year for the next five years. I get it. Nobody’s throwing a parade because Mat Ishbia isn’t paying $300+ million in luxury tax anymore.

But these things matter. And they’re exactly why getting off the Beal deal, as painful as it looks, is actually a win for Phoenix.

Let’s talk numbers.

Bradley Beal was set to earn $53.7 million this season. By agreeing to a buyout and stretching that money over five years, the Suns save $34.3 million this year alone. Yes, $19.4 million now counts against the cap as dead money, but that’s still $34.3 million in relief. And with Beal officially gone, the team also gains an open roster spot.

Before the buyout, the Suns were sitting at a $219.5 million cap hit (per Salary Swish, acknowledging that numbers vary slightly across sources and rookie deals weren’t yet included). After the buyout? That number drops to $185.2 million.

The first apron sits at $195.9 million.

So for the first time in what feels like forever, the Suns have room to maneuver. They’ve exited second-apron hell, opened up flexibility, and finally put themselves in a position to reshape the roster instead of being handcuffed by it.

That doesn’t mean it’s not painful. But it does mean they’ve given themselves a way forward.

Looking ahead to the summer of 2026, the Suns have saved themselves another $37.8 million in cap space that would’ve gone to Bradley Beal as part of the $57.1 million he was owed. That’s no small chunk of change.

Yes, the roster is essentially filled out for this year. They’ll have some wiggle room and can even offer more than the minimum for certain players, though, let’s be honest. Most free agents still on the board are probably just hoping for a vet minimum anyway. No need to overpay.

But next offseason? That’s where things open up in a meaningful way.

The Suns are entering year two of a retool around Devin Booker, and they’ll finally have the capacity to pursue real free agents, players of actual value, because this team is no longer shackled by a Big Three.

It’s Booker on the books at $57 million in 2026–27. It’s Jalen Green at $33.3 million this year and $36 million the next. After that? It’s a series of tradable contracts and guys on reasonable deals.

Is having $19.4 million in dead cap ideal? Of course not. Is it problematic that the Suns don’t control their own draft capital for the foreseeable future? Absolutely. But what they’ve regained is flexibility. And in the NBA, that’s currency.

They can now turn future free agents into trade chips, flip mid-tier contracts into picks, or use their newfound trade margin to go big. Thanks to the second apron rules being behind them, the Suns can now take back 110% in a deal. That means if you package Royce O’Neale’s $10.1 million with Grayson Allen’s $16.9 million, you can bring back a player making up to $29.7 million.

That’s the realm of a Derrick White. A Jaden McDaniels. A Draymond Green.

Or maybe you go the other direction, turning those contracts into draft assets and leaning into a long-term reset. Either way, you now have choices.

Before? You were stuck. All you could offer was a veteran minimum. No aggregation. No mid-tier deals. No maneuvering. Now? Now you can build again.

So yes, having Bradley Beal’s contract still sitting on your books for five years isn’t ideal. Noted. But it’s also what gave you the breathing room to start thinking — and acting — strategically again.

Long Term Impact

When you zoom out and look at the next five years, yeah, it gets a little tougher to swallow.

$19.4 million in dead cap. Every single year. Just for Bradley Beal. And that’s not even the full picture. Nassir Little and EJ Liddell are also contributing to the Suns’ dead money moving forward.

Put it in perspective: $19.4 million is basically the going rate for Collin Sexton. Harrison Barnes. Malik Monk. Alex Caruso. Guys who contribute. Guys who play. That stings.

So let’s do some math, shall we? Let’s try to reframe this, not as a win, but as something less catastrophic than it first appears. Because when we talk buyouts, we tend to react emotionally. But this is a thought exercise. A long-term one.

Bradley Beal’s dead cap hit this year is $19.4 million. The current NBA salary cap? $154.6 million. That means Beal’s buyout accounts for 12.5% of the Suns’ total cap space.

That’s significant. But here’s the thing: that percentage won’t stay static. The cap is expected to rise. And as it does, the weight of that $19.4 million shrinks.

Let’s assume a modest 7% year-over-year cap increase over the next four seasons. That is what the 2026–27 cap rise will be, which puts the league at $165.4 million. If that growth continues, by the time we reach the final year of Beal’s stretched deal, 2029–30, the cap would hit approximately $202.6 million.

At that point, Beal’s $19.4 million would make up just 9.5% of the total cap.

To put that in perspective: 9.5% of the current cap equals about $14.7 million, a deal in the range of what Royce O’Neale or Grayson Allen might command. So when you think of it that way, what the Suns are sacrificing in 2029–30 isn’t some massive anchor weighing them down.

It’s a role player.

In other words, this move stings now. But five years from now? The financial hit won’t be nearly as painful as it looks in today’s dollars.

Here’s the same concept with a more aggressive increase in the cap structure.

Keep in mind, we’re being conservative here. The NBA salary cap can rise by as much as 10% per year, and with the new TV rights deal kicking in as soon as next season, it’s not far-fetched to imagine a scenario where the cap starts hitting that maximum increase by 2027–28.

If that happens? The Bradley Beal buyout becomes even less of a burden. As the cap balloons, that $19.4 million hit shrinks proportionally. What feels like a heavyweight today could be little more than a ripple in the financial landscape just a few years from now.

Does it hurt to the point where you can live with it? That’s for you to decide. Any time the Suns run into a wall, any time they’re limited or boxed in because of this Beal situation, fans are going to curse his name. And honestly? Rightfully so.

It was a bad decision. A reckless one. And we’re all stuck with the fallout.

Is This the Future?

The new CBA is suffocatingly restrictive, and in Phoenix, we know that better than anyone. We’ve lived it. We’ve breathed it. For the past two seasons, the second apron hasn’t been a guideline. It’s been a wall that we’ve run ourselves into ad nauseam.

Now, entering year three under this new reality, a tough question emerges: Is this just what the NBA is now? Are teams going to keep handing out contracts to players who ultimately don’t fit, then stretch those deals just to breathe again?

Maybe not always to the scale of Bradley Beal. But the concept — dead cap as a cost of doing business — may be here to stay.

Look at Milwaukee. They just stretched Damian Lillard, eating even more money than Phoenix did, all to gain the flexibility to pursue Myles Turner.

One injury, a little age, and they pulled the plug. No drama. Just math.

So no, this isn’t ideal. But it might become the new norm. In a league bound by punitive rules, front offices may have to embrace a hard truth: sometimes, you pay players not to play, not because you want to, but because it’s the only way forward.

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The more I research, the clearer it becomes: this was probably the best path forward for the Phoenix Suns.

Start with the obvious. Bradley Beal can’t be on the team next season. That relationship was done. And once that reality set in, the options became painfully limited. He has a no-trade clause. That alone makes moving him nearly impossible. Pair that with a contract that’s flat-out obscene, and you’re looking at an asset no one wants. So what do you do?

Do you buy him out and eat the full amount over two years? Absorb it all upfront, knowing you have no draft capital to rebuild with? That’s not a plan. That’s a fast track to mediocrity.

Instead, the Suns chose to stretch the deal. And while that’s not ideal, it at least gives them a chance. It gives them cap space. It gives them options. And now, it’s on them to make the most of it.

We don’t yet know what Brian Gregory and this new front office are capable of. This is their proving ground. Can they be strategic? Can they build a contender over the next few seasons? One competitive enough to attract free agents? Can they use that flexibility to flip those additions into draft capital year after year?

Remember: just a month ago, the Suns held two late picks in the draft, 29 and 52. Now they’re sending three rookies and two sophomores to the Summer League. That’s a third of the roster, devoted to development.

So no, the Suns aren’t in an ideal position. But the NBA is fluid. Ever-changing. There’s always a new path if you know how to walk it.

No one’s pretending the Beal buyout is a good thing. It’s not. But maybe it’s not as bad as it looks.

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