Almost 90% of fans think the team should regret the move.
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As the Phoenix Suns went into the offseason, it appeared two roster moves were assuredly going to happen. The first was that Kevin Durant was going to get traded, which happened before the draft as he was shipped to the Houston Rockets in a deal that netted the team young players and picks. The second was that Bradley Beal was going to be off the roster some way, some how.
@Gambo987: “There’s a zero percent chance that Bradley Beal is back on this Suns team next year.”
Watch the full conversation here: https://t.co/10IwVbrhPJ pic.twitter.com/AwtysiZ8TO
— The Burns & Gambo Show (@BurnsAndGambo) April 10, 2025
The ladder finally happened earlier this week. Beal was bought out by the Suns and intends to sign with the Los Angeles Clippers, who now have the fourth-highest odds to win the Western Conference according to FanDuel.
Before Beal’s departure became official, we asked Suns fans if the team should regret the trade they made with the Washington Wizards for the guard two years ago and they resoundingly voted yes.
This, obviously, should come as no surprise to anyone. Not only did Phoenix underwhelm during his tenure, but so did Beal, as he averaged the least amount of points in his two Suns seasons since his fourth season in the league. His max contract situation with his no-trade clause made him very difficult to deal with when the Suns realized that he was not a fit with the team.
His contract pushed the team’s hand into buying him out, and he’s now on the books for the rest of the decade despite not being on the team. Phoenix could have traded for Beal and made him give up his no-trade clause, and perhaps that would have made the dynamic between the team and him a bit less tense at times, especially during trade rumors last season.
While the Beal trade impacted the Suns’ ability to improve the roster financially, something people didn’t think about at the time of the deal, but also hurt the team in the amount of assets they gave up. In the trade for Beal, the Suns gave the Wizards the right to swap first-round picks in 2024, 2026, 2028, and 2030, along with second-round picks in 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028, and 2030.
The Suns gave up four first-round picks to get Kevin Durant, but their picks in 2024, 2026, and 2030 were still completely their own which means if they needed a year to reset or if they had bad injury luck, they would be in a spot to be in the lottery and have full control of what pick they got but they lost that when they traded for Beal.
For a franchise like the Suns that is still searching to capture its first Larry O’Brien Trophy, going all-in to win the title can excite fans, but the Suns already lost a lot of their assets trading for Kevin Durant and lost even more of them when they traded for Bradley Beal and at the very least, they should regret how much they gave up for him because it didn’t work out and need to dig themselves out of a very difficult situation.
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