Insider Expects This Resolution to Suns, Bradley Beal Fiasco

The Milwaukee Bucks set a precedent when they waived and stretched Damian Lillard's $113 million remaining on his contract Tuesday, paving a way for the Phoenix Suns to consider what was previously deemed impossible -- buying out Bradley Beal.

ESPN NBA Front Office Insider Bobby Marks expects the Suns to pull the trigger on buying out the $110.8 million remaining on Beal's contract, but detailed how it would be very different from Lillard's situation.

"Well, he's got to get a home first," Marks said on the Ryen Russillo Podcast.

"It's not going to be the Lillard one. Because here's the thing with Beal, Lillard and him are different because Phoenix has already waived and stretched Nassir Little and E.J. Liddell, so they're already got $3.5 million on the books. So, you can't just waive and stretch Beal without doing a buyout because it would exceed the 15 percent of the cap."

The reason Milwaukee stretched Lillard's contract over five years is because of the "waive and stretch provisions" placed on every team where their portion of the salary cap allocated to waived players cannot exceed 15% of salary. Beal's contract is too massive to add to those of Little and Liddell.

So, Marks deems a buyout as Phoenix's only solution, but says there needs to be a market for him to find a home afterwards.

"Can he get the non-tax [mid-level exception] no the market?" Marks asked rhetorically. "I went through the numbers last night. There's not many teams that have money as you'd think and there are teams teams that have it but are right against the first apron, and that gets triggered if you use it.

"I would think that a buyout happens. It's a matter of; is he willing take a little bit less of the $110 [million]? Would he take... $96, $97 [million] from Phoenix if he can get eight or nine from another team and he loses three or four million dollars? I think that's the biggest questions. But, I think if there is a buyout, he has to take money off [his contract]."

One of the reasons the Suns didn't consider a buyout during their 2024-25 season was because of how tedious and, quite frankly, how historically uncommon such a move would be. However, in this new era of the salary cap, we've seen two teams make historic buyouts, the Bucks with Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers with former Suns center Deandre Ayton.

Yes, Phoenix will eat a ton of money, but it's been evident for nearly three seasons now that Beal's fit on the team is redundant and a change is desperately needed.

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