The Washington Wizards are reportedly working with Bradley Beal to identify potential landing spots in a trade for their 11-year veteran and (possibly) soon to be former face of the franchise. The Miami Heat and Phoenix Suns have emerged as finalists for acquiring Beal, per The Athletic’s Shams Charania.
The former makes total sense. Miami just fell short in the NBA Finals and could use an offensive boost to help try to take them over the edge as a contender. The Heat have a young talent in Tyler Herro and a big salary in Kyle Lowry to play around with. Even with a bunch of picks included in a package including those two players, Miami’s potential offers feel a bit light in a vacuum, but the fact that Beal has a no-trade clause takes away a ton of leverage from the Wizards.
Any deal the Heat can swing without giving up Jimmy Butler or Bam Adebayo would be a home run for Miami. And that’s because Beal fits a need. He’s a big wing who can get to the basket, score in the midrange, and function as a threat from deep both on and off the ball. Herro can do most of those things too, but he can’t hold up as well defensively as Beal.
The Suns can theoretically put together an offer that is at least of equal value to those that the Heat can construct. DeAndre Ayton would serve as the alluring young player, with salary filler and draft picks as sweetener.
If Ayton is included, Phoenix would be left without a single big man on its roster entering into the offseason. That’s a pretty big roll of the dice to acquire a player soon to be in his 30s and who just finished the first of a five-year, $250 million dollar contract. Its particularly risky given the Suns abundance of existing perimeter talent.
Beal is in many ways a worse version of Devin Booker, both of whom are wings with dynamic handles and oodles of craft in the midrange. Duplication of skills is a real risk, particularly in the salary bands in which we are speculating.
Do the Suns really want to pay $82 million just to Booker and Beal next year if they’re going to be filling similar roles?
The answer to that question is probably not, but there is a problem with its framing. Booker and Beal have undeniable similarities in their games, but there is one noticeable distinction. Beal gets to the rim with far greater frequency. The 31% of his shots he takes by the basket ranks in the 72nd percentile as compared to his positional peers, per Cleaning the Glass.
By comparison, Booker takes just 22% of his shots at the rim, ranking in the 35th percentile. His lack of rim presence is reflective of a problem that plagued the Phoenix offense throughout the season. As a team, the Suns took just 25.9% of their shots at the rim, the very worst mark in the NBA, per Cleaning the Glass.
That data doesn’t reflect the full impact of adding Kevin Durant to the mix at the trade deadline last year, but for as good as Durant is, he does put on ton of pressure on the rim in his own right. There’s a credible argument to be made that if Beal lands in Phoenix he will be a perfect balm for what’s ailing the team’s offense.
He’d need to commit to fully embracing his ability to get to the rack as his main form of contributing offensively. Beal has traditionally also sported a heavy usage in the midrange, where Booker and Durant both like to live. He’s not a good enough scorer to take away looks from those two in that particular area of the court, but he could definitely take advantage of the spacing they provide to get to the basket, and open up tons of easy offense for his teammates by attracting help along the way.
Beal’s fit with the Suns is - contrary to some opinions - tantalizing. The real sticking point is the cost associated with acquiring him, both in terms of his sizeable contract and the assets Phoenix would have to surrender to land him. The Suns would be stuck constructing the roster around Beal, Booker, and Durant with the team building equivalent of duct tape and paper clips.
They’d need to have confidence that adding Beal would be enough to vault them into the top tier of contention. It might, but it would be a hell of a bet.