Also largely suspected, the Los Angeles clippers had a plan. They are not content to throw Norman Powell to avoid paying him too much on his next contract; they exchange He for John Collins and Bradley Beal, the latter would have joined the team on a contract of $ 11 million over two years (with a player option in the 2nd year) once he has erased the exemptions.
Aside from the confusing decision of the Phoenix Suns to give up Beal (and pay him $ 19.2 million a year for the next five years), all of this is logical. This is a situation on the right, right, right and right.
Good place, good time
In Phoenix, on a huge contract which included a non-exchange clause, Beal was considered a burden. In Los Angeles, on an agreement that will pay him $ 5.3 million this season, he is a good deal. He joined a deep and veteran team not as the third member of a Big 3, but like another piece of an increasingly interesting puzzle.
With the Suns, Beal’s defensive limitations were amplified because the list was heavy and small. It will not be a problem with the Clippers, who had the third best defense in the league last season and added Brook Lopez this summer. Beal will not make any defense next year, but I bet that it will look much thinner in a team than a) is not in collective discomfort and b) to Ivica Zubac and / or Lopez protecting the paint and a lot of long and switched wings.
Offensively, Beal should also be in an ideal environment. In some respects, teaming up with James Harden and Kawhi Leonard is not so different from what he has just experienced next to Devin Booker and Kevin during, but, in this situation, everyone knows who is the leader. With Harden who directs the show and Leonard is always able to shoot two in the ball, Beal will find many opportunities to attack the tilted defenses. And when Beal himself initiates the offensive, the filaters and the soil spacers of the Clippers will make life easier than ever. We do not know how the coach Tyronn Lue will manage the rotation, but read is renowned specifically for his mixture and his assortment.
Beal never played for a team that has progressed beyond the second round of the playoffs, and it did not arrive so far since 2017. At his introductory press conference in Phoenix two years ago, he said he was delighted to “play with two Hall of Famers” and “Chase This Ring”. This passage was not done as he hoped, but now he has what is equivalent to a do-over. The Clippers have the same aspirations as the Suns and a much more balanced list.
Right player, good price
The Los Angeles cap sheet paints a clear image: the front office of Lawrence Frank wants to preserve its flexibility in the medium and long term. Zubac is the only player who owes any money guaranteed beyond the 2026-27 season, and, apart from $ 50.3 million from Leonard that year, there is not much money beyond the coming season. (Harden, Lopez and Nicolas Batum signed two -year offers this summer; in the year 2, the Harden agreement is partially guaranteed and the Lopez and Batum are completely unmarked.) A strong extension of the contract for the 32 -year -old Powell did not correspond to the plan.
In the short term, however, the clippers want to win. If the Powell-Force-Collins trade seemed confusing, then it was because Powell and Harden (who had a 28.6% use rate in 2024-25, his higher since his days with the Houston Rockets) did everything they could to keep the offensive afloat when Leonard was out of the alignment last season. Powell’s departure left them a serious shortage of shooting creation.
You don’t need to be an initiate, then, to understand that Los Angeles has made this eye movement on Beal. By adding the old All-Star to cheap, the Clippers found the notation guard they needed and set up a list which, on paper at least, can challenge the best of the West. It is an old team with health problems, but it has the creation of games, the shooting, the defense of the perimeter, the protection of the rim and the versatility to be really dangerous.
Unlike Powell, Beal is definitely not that comes out of a career season. His use rate of 21.9% was the lowest he had posted since his recruit year, and the Suns were upgraded by eight points for 100 possessions with him on the ground. Beal missed 35 games, its frequency of shooting on the edge of the series has decreased and was withdrawn from the departure formation for six weeks. However, he still marked effectively (59.8 TS%) and made 40.6% of his 3 CAPES 3. He has severity everywhere in the field and he will develop pick-And-Roll chemistry with Zubac and Collins in a short time.
On the strength of his defense and his depth, Los Angeles won 50 regular season games last year, even if Leonard missed more than half of the season and his former co-star, Paul George, had left the previous summer. Now, the clippers are betting that their defense and their depth will allow their new guys to be their best self. Collins was largely forgotten with Utah Jazz, and Beal was slandered by the Suns, but the first gives them an archetype they never had and the second fills the void they had recently created. There are a history of players looking rejuvenated after joining the Clippers – Batum, Kris Dunn and Bogdan Bogdanovic are three examples on the current list – and there is no reason that Beal can not be the next one.
