The case against buying out and stretching Bradley Beal’s contract

I swore I was out, but here I am buying into Beal and a guard-heavy lineup…and it may be too late.

The Phoenix Suns were quiet. After trading Kevin Durant and navigating an NBA Draft that broke their way, which allowed them to flex their negotiating muscle and move multiple picks to land their guy after another guy landed in their lap, free agency landed with a thud. But, as I’ve said before, we always knew it would. With the team locked into the second apron, flexibility was never part of the plan.

Now, as we wait for July 6, the day when all of Phoenix’s moves officially take shape, one truth has come into focus: this roster, as it stands, is painfully unbalanced.

The recent buzz surrounding a potential Bradley Beal buyout has once again stirred the pot, and with it, the Suns find themselves at yet another crossroads. It’s a scenario I’ve been writing about since March, questioning what a buyout would look like and how it might shape the team both in the short term and down the road.

At first, I was all in on the idea. Buy him out. Clear the books. Regain flexibility. But now that the decision seems closer to reality, I find myself hesitating. Backpedaling, even.

Why the shift? Because of the draft. Because of how the Suns navigated it. Because of the players they brought in, and the rare #alignment it seems to have created. There’s now a path, however narrow, to avoid turning a two-year headache into a five-year dilemma.

I can already feel it happening. The slow pull back into narratives I promised myself I was done with. Buying back in on the idea of Bradley Beal. And now I’m stuck doing the mental gymnastics to convince myself it’s fine, maybe even justifiable. I’m buying into positionless basketball, too, because what choice do I have?

So hell. I’ll give it a try.

Buying Back in on Beal

So, how do I get myself to buy back in, to sell myself on the idea of Bradley Beal being a core piece of this team? I’ve been loud about my disdain for a year now. Not for the person, but for the player. And more than anything, for the contract. It’s been an anchor on flexibility, a roadblock to roster balance, and a symbol of the Suns’ all-in gamble that hasn’t paid off.

But here we are. Beal’s still here. He’s going to be here. And if I’m going to survive another season with this team, I need to find a way to justify it. To believe in it. To make peace with it.

So alright. Let’s give it a go. Back in on Bradley Beal.

If there were two defining voids on last season’s Suns team, they were personality and leadership. The roster felt like a band of mercenaries. Hired guns clocking in, executing their assignments with all the cohesion of poorly trained assassins, then heading home. There was no pulse. No emotion. No fire. Just a group of incredibly skilled players operating in isolation, without rhythm, without connection, and crucially, without a clear leader.

That rudderless drift may have defined the season, but having Bradley Beal on your roster can help change that. He has the tools to be more than just a scorer. He can be a tone-setter, a voice, and a presence.

But last year, he felt muted. Overshadowed by other stars who, whether they wanted to or not, absorbed all the oxygen in the room. His coach seemingly pushed him to the margins. He looked like he was going through the motions. And yes, he was battling injuries, something that’s become an unfortunate and familiar theme in Beal’s career.

I keep going back to that stretch in 2024, during those final ten games of the regular season, right before the Suns got swept out of the playoffs by the Timberwolves. It was a brutal slate, one of the toughest closing schedules in the league, and yet…Beal showed up. He didn’t coast. He didn’t hide. He rose to the occasion.

In that stretch, he played with urgency. With passion. He spoke with conviction in his postgame interviews, not just calling out the team, but holding himself accountable too.

There was a fire there, something that had been missing for most of the season. And when the Suns won, and he stood on the sideline for a victory interview, what did we see? His younger teammates surrounding him, splashing water in celebration, rallying around him.

Do you ever remember that happening with Durant? I don’t. Durant was revered, treated like a god among men, untouched and above it all. But Beal? Beal felt like one of them. Not above, but within. Part of the fabric. Someone they respected, and more importantly, someone they wanted to celebrate.

There’s something in that. A glimpse of the kind of leadership this team has been starving for. Passion. Connection. Presence. If that version of Beal can re-emerge, maybe there’s still a reason to believe.

“Brad’s the heart of this team,” Devin Booker once said. “So, to have him out there, have his energy out there, it’s always needed.”

As I look at this new path forward for the Phoenix Suns, one shaped by an overabundance of shooting guards, I find myself thinking about what Bradley Beal could bring. And the answer is leadership. Vocal presence. A personality on the floor. We’ve seen flashes that he can do that for this team, and now more than ever, we need it.

Then I think about Jalen Green. A younger version of Beal in many ways. Quick-twitch, explosive, fearless attacking the rim. He loves the three, even if it hasn’t fully fallen for him yet. The potential is obvious, but what he needs desperately is structure, guidance, and a model to follow.

Photo by Kenneth Richmond/Getty Images

For those who believe that the Suns should send Bradley Beal home next season simply because he refused to waive his no-trade clause, I completely disagree. That’s not leadership. That’s not accountability. That’s punishment. And being punitive doesn’t build culture. It erodes it. If we’re truly trying to reset the identity of this team, starting with a punitive mindset sends the wrong message.

Accountability comes from clearly defined expectations, communicated up front. And if someone repeatedly fails to meet those expectations, then consequences follow. But not out of spite. Not as a shortcut to a desired result. You don’t punish Bradley Beal for doing exactly what any player in his position would have done: sign a max contract and honor its terms. That’s on the Suns, not on him.

So no, you don’t exile him because you regret the trade. You embrace him. You give him the space to lead. You lean into a season where you’re not winning a championship anyway, and use it to invest in identity, continuity, and growth.

Put Bradley Beal in a position to succeed. Let him speak. Let him lead. Let him show Jalen Green what it looks like to become the next version of him. That’s a smarter, more grounded, more human approach than sending someone home out of embarrassment for decisions you made.

Buying Back in on Position-less Basketball

I have to buy back in on position-less basketball again, eh? Fuck me. Okay…

With a roster overloaded at the shooting guard position, and the classic point guard slowly disappearing across the NBA landscape, the Suns find themselves right back where they were two summers ago: discussing facilitation in a league that increasingly de-emphasizes it. Combo guard might be the new point guard in name, but the true skill set, the ability to orchestrate, create rhythm, and command pace, is still rare. And Phoenix still doesn’t have it.

Yes, they brought back Collin Gillespie. And while there’s value in his toughness, smarts, and locker room presence, he isn’t the answer. His strengths lie in intangibles, not elite playmaking. This has become the trend, and the Suns aren’t alone in this drift, but they are one of the teams most exposed by it.

We’ve been here before. When the idea of a Devin Booker/Bradley Beal backcourt became real two summers ago, the same concerns bubbled up: Who’s going to run the show when one of them rests? Who’s going to stop the offense from stalling?

To be fair, the first season of the Booker/Beal pairing wasn’t a failure on paper.

In the 1,111 minutes they shared the floor, the Suns were +136. It wasn’t chemistry that doomed them; it was timing. Specifically, fourth-quarter timing. The Suns struggled when one of the two stars sat, and the offense lacked structure. But in the 222 minutes Booker and Beal shared fourth-quarter minutes, the team was +23. In fact, their most productive closing lineups almost always included both.

So we’ve seen it can work.

But last season, in an attempt to course-correct, the team overcorrected. Signing Tyus Jones was supposed to solve the lulls. Instead, it flipped the identity. Rather than using Jones to stabilize second units, they started him, rolling out a tiny trio of Jones, Beal, and Booker that looked good on a whiteboard but fell apart in execution.

The result? Poor defense, crowded spacing, and an inability to generate stops or clean rotations. Instead of elevating the team, the move compromised its structure. And it showed.

Despite playing 1,139 minutes together last season, the Booker/Beal pairing finished with a -177 plus/minus, proof that small ball without direction is just chaos in disguise.

So yeah, here I am once again, talking myself into believing that guard-heavy lineups can work. That maybe there’s a path to balance even when you’re working with an unbalanced roster.

The addition of Jalen Green throws a wild card into the mix. A raw, dynamic talent who brings energy and upside, but also raises serious questions about fit.

The hope is that next season, Jordan Ott understands what’s at stake. That he doesn’t fall into the same trap as last year. Because if the plan is to run Green, Booker, and Beal all at the same time, again, then we’re heading straight back into the same mess. One of them has to be the odd man out. One of them has to come off the bench.

If you believe that rolling out three undersized guards is a sustainable strategy, you’re not paying attention. That’s a formula for defensive breakdowns. For mismatches. For Booker playing out of position. Again.

And that’s a disservice to him at this point in his career.

Yes, he can play the three. We saw it on Team USA. But that Olympic roster was stacked with Hall of Famers and elite defenders. It was an environment built to mask any weaknesses and amplify strengths.

That is not the case in Phoenix.

The 2024 Paris Olympics should not be the blueprint for how to deploy Devin Booker in the regular season. If anything, they should serve as a reminder of what it looks like when a star is used properly, with structure, support, and role clarity.

This team can work. But only if it stops pretending it’s something it’s not.

The Suns have made their intentions clear. They’re prioritizing grit, toughness, and defense on the perimeter. The addition of Dillon Brooks speaks to that identity shift, and he absolutely must start. But not at power forward. His skill set, his energy, his defensive presence? Those belong on the wing, not buried under bigger bodies in the paint.

The strategy seems obvious: surround a double two-guard backcourt with long, athletic wings who can act as a safety net.

If you’re going to run lineups with Booker and Beal, or Booker and Green, or even Green and Beal, the defensive concept hinges on one thing: trust. Trust that the guys behind you can cover your gambles. Trust that someone’s there when you miss a rotation or get caught on a screen.

It’s reminiscent of the era when Booker and Chris Paul played with Mikal Bridges, Jae Crowder, and Deandre Ayton behind them. You could ask them to play more aggressively at the point of attack, because the infrastructure was solid.

That’s the hope again. Aggression over complacency. Pressure over passivity. But all of that only works if there’s one thing in place: communication. And that’s where the Suns have to grow. Because all three of their primary guards — Beal, Booker, and Green — are below average defensively. It’s a fact.

So if this is going to work, the talk has to be constant, the rotations have to be sharp, and the accountability has to be real. They’ll all have their turn at point guard, and all will need to communicate effectively.

And yet here I am, still referring to it as the “point guard” position. But it’s 2025. That label doesn’t quite apply anymore. We’re living in the era of guards, wings, and bigs. And that’s where the Suns’ apparent imbalance might be more perception than reality.

Look at what Jordan Ott had in Cleveland.

Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland aren’t traditional point guards. They’re small combo guards, scorers, creators. But it worked because of the defensive length behind them. Perhaps that’s exactly what the Suns are trying to replicate: guards who can shoot, create, and get downhill, backed by long, athletic defenders who cover ground and make life easier for everyone in front of them.

It’s a gamble. But if the system is tight and the roles are clear, it’s one that just might work.

And once again, my expectations settle back to earth. I don’t think this team is winning a championship. Not this year. This feels more like a step in the process, a pivot toward #TheAlignment, not arrival.

So, when I shift my lens and view it as a transitional year, a culture reset, a recalibration of identity, I can start to make peace with it.

Yes, I can buy back into Bradley Beal. Yes, I can buy back into positionless basketball.

Mat Ishbia. Brian Gregory. Joshy B. Don’t buy him out. We’re not winning it all next year. Unless some franchise-alternating move lies on the other side of it, stay the course. Get through the next two years building the team the right way. Keep your financial flexibility.

But it’s the Suns. So…a buyout is imminent.

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