Wizards’ Bradley Beal trade talks heat up: Which players could deals with Heat and Suns include?
The Washington Wizards, as The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported earlier Saturday, are seriously contemplating trade offers for three-time All-Star guard Bradley Beal from the Miami Heat and Phoenix Suns.
According to league sources, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the trade talks, Miami would send guards Kyle Lowry and Duncan Robinson, along with multiple first-round picks, to Washington for Beal. Phoenix would send center Deandre Ayton or future Hall of Fame point guard Chris Paul to the Wizards for Beal.
The offers indicate a rapid escalation in trade talks for Beal, who has agreed with the Wizards to help facilitate a trade if Washington decides a radical reset of its roster is in order before Thursday’s NBA draft. Wizards governor Ted Leonsis has given his blessing to his team’s new management structure, headed by president of Monumental Basketball Michael Winger and general manager Will Dawkins, to do whatever it deems necessary to revamp the team, which went 35-47 this past season and missed the playoffs for the fourth time in five years. Leonsis fired former GM Tommy Sheppard in late April.
Beal negotiated a no-trade clause, the only one currently in the NBA, with the Wizards before signing his five-year, $251 million maximum-salary deal with the team last summer, and must approve any potential trade Washington makes with another team, limiting the potential deals the Wizards could make for the 29-year-old. Beal is coming off of one of his most efficient seasons in his career, averaging 23.2 points, 5.4 assists and 3.9 rebounds last season. He shot better than 50 percent last season for the first time in his career, and his .365 percentage on 3-pointers was his highest in the last five years.
While the Wizards would prefer guard Tyler Herro to be in any potential trade with Miami, the Heat, for now, are trying to keep Herro out of the deal, offering Robinson instead. Beal would give Miami a needed additional scorer to go with Jimmy Butler, Herro and center Bam Adebayo. The Heat are believed to be among Beal’s most preferred teams for a trade.
Dawkins has a prior relationship with Paul dating back to CP3’s season (2019-20) in Oklahoma City with the Thunder, when he helped lead OKC to an unexpected playoff run, where the Thunder lost a tough seven-game series with the Rockets in the first round in the bubble at Disney. Dawkins spent 15 seasons in Oklahoma City’s front office before taking the GM job in Washington.
Ayton, the first pick overall in the 2018 draft, has fallen out of favor in Phoenix, even though the Suns matched the four-year, $132.9 million offer sheet Ayton received last year from the Indiana Pacers. Ayton and former coach Monty Williams had a chilly relationship, with Williams benching Ayton during Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals series with Dallas in 2022. The Suns hired ex-Lakers, Magic and Pacers coach Frank Vogel earlier this month, but that does not appear to have significantly improved their relationship with the 24-year-old Ayton, who averaged 18 points and 10 rebounds this past season for Phoenix.
Acquiring Ayton would likely complicate any chances the Wizards retain their current starting center, Kristaps Porziņģis, who faces a deadline this coming Wednesday on whether or not to opt in on his player option for the 2023-24 season, at $36 million. If Porziņģis declines his player option, he would become an unrestricted free agent next month.
The Suns told Paul earlier this month that they would work with him to resolve his future, whether through a trade, waiver or re-signing him in Phoenix to a smaller deal after being waived. The 38-year-old point guard has two years remaining on the four-year, $120 million contract he signed in 2021. But only $15.8 million of the $30.8 million he’s due for the 2023-24 season is guaranteed if Paul is waived before June 28, while none of the $30 million Paul is due in 2024-25 is guaranteed if he is waived before June 28, 2024. So Washington would only be on the hook for the guaranteed $15.8 million this year on its salary cap if it acquired Paul for Beal, but then waived him before the 28th of this year.
dacomeup
and I started the Beal dialogue while y’all were hoping for a Wizards tank/rebuild around Herro and Duncan Robinson 
B Sox
that’s quite the insult unless you genuinely don’t understand appreciating/depreciating player worths and such are or just wanted a moment in the sun 
