Entering his second year with the Phoenix Suns, Bradley Beal is grateful to be in the situations that he is in, but he spoke about the wild journey of how he arrived in the Valley.
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On the podcast Run Your Race, Beal revealed that as the Washington Wizards continued to miss the playoffs and rising speculation of teams interested in facilitating a trade for him before last season, he had two destinations on his mind: the Milwaukee Bucks and Miami Heat.
While he kept his eye on either franchise making a move for him, Beal originally never had Phoenix on his mind.
“Phoenix wasn’t even in the picture. I am waiting on Miami and Milwaukee, those were kind of like my two,” Beal said. “Miami didn’t want to do it for whatever reason, I didn’t know why. Milwaukee I was like on the fence, they were trading [Khris] Middleton who had a player option. He has to opt in to get traded, I don’t think many people are going to opt into getting traded to D.C. at that time. At the time, we weren’t good and weren’t winning.
“The loyalty part of that in trading somebody who won you a championship the previous year and was a key piece to the championship, it didn’t sit right with me. I feel I could have fit that role really nicely, but I ain’t like that and the business part of that. We learn that they can ship us anytime anywhere, it’s business at the end of the day.”
With a trade inevitable at that point, it was only a matter of time until Beal found a new home.
Then out of nowhere, he got a phone call from his agent that the Suns were interested.
At first, he was confused about how a trade was even possible given what Phoenix had to offer in exchange for him. But as his agent talked to him and he thought about the possibility of playing with Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, Beal started to think it would be an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.
“Two days before Father’s Day in June last year. I was in New York with my wife chilling and taking a day trip to New York from D.C. and my agent called me. I said, ‘What is Miami talking about’ and he hadn’t heard back. So I said alright and he said, ‘What do you think of Phoenix?’ I said, ‘Is that even an option, how are they going to do that? Are they going to trade Book?’ That made no sense but he said they have other pieces, whether it was CP [Chris Paul or [Deandre] Ayton, they said they’ll do it.
“So I said, ‘Me, Book, KD, they are cool with this? This isn’t an owner who is doing something just to do it, we are going to make sure this thing works. It wasn’t even an hour later, KD, ‘What are we doing?’ Book, ‘What are we doing?’ I didn’t get that nowhere else… I felt wanted. My agent calls me, ‘Phoenix wants to fly to New York and meet with you.’ I said okay, cool, let’s do it.”
The team representatives then flew out to meet Beal and a day later, he became a Sun.
“It was a Saturday. Had a meeting with them, James [Jones], owner [Mat Ishbia]. Left the meeting and I told my agent to get it done,” Beal said. “Went to my boy’s baseball game Sunday, put my phone in my pocket because it was Father’s Day and, ‘Beal traded to Suns, Beal traded to Suns.’ Nobody knew because it came out of nowhere but once I got the stamp from those two [Booker and Durant], let’s do this. We three hoopers that love to hoop, don’t care about nothing but hooping. That’s where I want to be.”
The Wizards sent Beal, Jordan Goodwin and Isaiah Todd to the Suns in exchange for Paul, Landry Shamet, four first-round pick swaps and six second-round picks on June 24, 2023
In his first season in Phoenix, Beal played an injury-shortened 53 games and averaged 18.2 points, 5.0 assists and 4.0 rebounds. He suffered lower back tightness, an ankle, nose, hamstring and finger injuries last year.
“I missed [29] games and we won 49 games, just think about that in hindsight. I ain’t going to say we are going to win every damn game but if I play half of them games, we’re the No. 1 seed in the West or at least competing for the No. 1 seed,” Beal said. “I missed 30, Book I think missed 10-15, K missed 10-15, like we missing.”
Now rejuvenated to put his injuries behind him, he hopes to contribute to the Suns for an even bigger encore season.
