Suns at a crossroads: Stalled hopes, Jimmy Butler interest and Bradley Beal’s no-trade clause

A viral social media post provided more than just a fun fact.

Earlier this month, longtime NBA journalist Zach Lowe released an obscure observation on X, formerly Twitter, about the Phoenix Suns: Bradley Beal tied his shoelaces midgame an unusual amount. The thought gained traction online, enough for basketball analytics expert Todd Whitehead to run the numbers and estimate how often Beal reaches to his sneaker tops this season. The calculus? He’d spent 15 more seconds tying his shoes than anyone else in the league.

But while no typical person would track the exact yearlong count, this concept wasn’t news to the Suns.

Phoenix staffers had noticed the trend already, that in the middle of a possession, Beal would bend down to retie his shoes as the other nine players continued. They didn’t know why. They just realized it was happening. And some detected that, in moments, it had burned the squad.

A couple of weeks ago, the Suns lost a possession because of Beal’s loose laces.

Point guard Monté Morris had picked up his dribble 40 feet from the hoop and turned to Beal, who was on the left wing and should have been ready for a pass. But Beal wasn’t aware of the situation, instead folded in half while tying his shoes with his teammate in need of an outlet. As Morris swiveled to Beal, the eyes of head coach Mike Budenholzer, who patrolled the sideline only a few feet behind, panned to Beal, as well. Budenholzer noticed the lapse, uncrossed his arms, shrugged and paced toward halfcourt, glaring back at the three-time All-Star.

Morris pivoted in the opposite direction, draining five more seconds off the clock, and swung the basketball to sharpshooter Grayson Allen, who pitched it back to him without enough time to make a play. The possession ended in a shot-clock violation.

The Suns moved Beal to the bench the next game. And no, they didn’t do it because only bridezillas are more focused on tying the knot. But the demotion was not a political move, either.

Phoenix is at an impasse, sitting at .500 and teetering at the bottom of the postseason picture. The Suns own the league’s largest payroll and don’t have control of their own first- or second-round pick until 2031. Because of a collective bargaining agreement that’s intentionally restrictive on the NBA’s most expensive teams, they’re limited in what types of trades or free-agent signings they can make.

In the ensuing weeks, many have speculated about why Phoenix pulled Beal, who remains an efficient, high-volume scorer, from the first unit. The front office has expressed strong interest in disgruntled Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler, according to multiple reports, and because of Beal’s salary and the Suns’ limited financial flexibility, they would need to include Beal in a trade for him (assuming the team’s top two performers, Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, are both off the table). But Beal has a no-trade clause, the same one that directed him to the Suns two summers ago. Phoenix requires his approval to deal him.

Could bringing Beal off the bench make him yearn for a new home? Maybe. But because of their cap situation, the Suns’ best chance to improve comes internally. And make no mistake about it: The decision to yank Beal from the first unit started with basketball, with on-court habits the team was hoping he could break but hasn’t yet.

The Suns needed a change, and removing a member of their big three from the first unit was only part of it.

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The day after that shot-clock violation, which was part of an early-January drubbing at the hands of the Indiana Pacers, Budenholzer informed the team of significant changes. Addressing the group during an off-day practice, he announced that two staples of the first unit would become reserves: Burly center Jusuf Nurkić and Beal, whom the Suns acquired in 2023 with the hopes that he, Durant and Booker could carry the organization to contender status.

Sitting at a disappointing 15-18, Phoenix needed a shakeup. The Nurkić issue had lingered for much of the season, with his minutes dwindling further over the previous few weeks as the Suns searched for any type of rim protection and better finishing around the basket. Veteran big man Mason Plumlee would replace him. First-year defensive dynamo Ryan Dunn would stand in for Beal.

Budenholzer spoke more generally about the Suns’ problems that day. Their big-picture flaws were obvious to the outside onlooker: Health aside, they needed more size, better rebounding and stronger point-of-attack defense. From the onset of the season, Beal was the guy tasked with guarding the other team’s top perimeter player. He had struggled of late, especially once screens came into the action. Nurkić, they believed, had not been up to par manning the paint.

The Suns engineered their roster around a first unit that was supposed to wreck anyone it faced. Instead, it has imploded. Booker is in the midst of his least-efficient season since becoming an All-Star. Phoenix’s starters with Beal and Nurkić (alongside Tyus Jones, Durant and Booker) are getting outscored by 17.1 points per 100 possessions on the season, making it one of the NBA’s worst lineups — starters or not.

“We look at everything,” Budenholzer said in an interview last week. “Some of it is analytics. Some of it is just gut, trusting what fits best for our group.”

What was best for the group, the Suns figured, was to drape ballhandlers with Dunn’s physicality. They hoped for more consistency from Plumlee than they got from Nurkić.

Beal is still playing 30-plus minutes, but bringing him off the bench separates some of Phoenix’s most harmful combinations. For example, Jones and Beal, who have both struggled defending the point of attack, are playing less together now — from 21 minutes a game before the benching to only nine after it.

When the Suns aren’t so porous up top, they move smoother.

They are 6-3 since the lineup change, though they haven’t bested any world-beaters during this stretch. Their most impressive victories are a road one over the 22-21 Detroit Pistons and a home one over the 22-20 Atlanta Hawks. They fell 118-92 to the league-leading Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday. Beal missed two of those games with an ankle injury, though he’s back now. Nurkić has missed the past five with an illness. In the two matches prior, he had fallen out of the rotation completely.

The Suns defense could improve without many edits. They rank 23rd in points allowed per possession, but the types of shots they give up are in line with stingy Budenholzer-led teams in his previous stops.

Phoenix doesn’t give up many looks at the rim, forces teams to the midrange, limits corner 3s and allows a bunch of long balls from the wings. It’s Budenholzer’s typical brand. But the Suns have suffered from bad fortune, such as from the corners. Opponents are connecting on the highest percentage of corner 3s in the NBA, a figure that tends to even out over the course of a season, even though Phoenix is allowing the second fewest shots from that area.

“I honestly think initially our defense is pretty good,” Durant told The Athletic after a recent Suns shootaround. “We just haven’t finished it well.”

The Suns are 19th in defensive rebound rate — and it’s not just because they are small. Durant wishes they would improve their gang rebounding. “You see one or two guys in the paint (and) three guys leaking out trying to get the offense going,” he observed.

At times, they fail to match up properly in transition. The Suns may thwart a fast break, but end up with a tiny guard trying to keep a glass glutton off the boards. In other moments, a defender will crumble on a screen, sending four teammates into a scramble and pulling players out of ideal rebounding position.

That’s when Phoenix can give up shots that are too easy.

“It’s a work in progress … but a lot of that can be covered up with better effort,” Jones said.

The Suns hope Nick Richards, who they acquired last week along with a second-round pick for Josh Okogie and three second-rounders, can change the prognosis. Richards is a 7-foot paint plugger who automatically gives them size in the middle and an athlete to soar for missed shots. He went for 21 points and 11 rebounds in his Phoenix debut Saturday and entered the first unit for Monday’s loss to the Cavs, when he scored four points and grabbed four boards.

But the Suns — who traded large chunks of their future for Durant, Beal, Nurkić and others — also recognize they are more than one career backup away from contention. With a couple of weeks until the trade deadline, they haven’t yet disconnected their phones.

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The Suns are making calls about the two veterans they just moved to the bench, though they have yet to ask Beal for his thoughts about any potential trade, team sources said. Beal’s sign-off is necessary, considering he can veto any deal that includes him.

He would consider waiving his no-trade clause for the right destination, according to a source familiar with his thinking. But as of now, management hasn’t gauged whether he wants out — and if so, to where? It’s not Beal’s style to approach a front office on his own. He went 11 years in Washington without asking for a trade. Once the Wizards finally moved him, it was because new leadership initiated the idea, not the other way around. He has told people close to him that if the Suns never ask him to waive the no-trade clause to facilitate a deal, then he won’t propose it on his own.

He may have different desires in 2025 than he did in 2023, when the Wizards traded him to Phoenix. Along with the Suns, his list at the time included the Heat, his one-time first choice, with consideration for the Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings. He’d always thought about Los Angeles, where he lived in the offseason until selling his home and moving to Phoenix full-time this past summer, but neither SoCal team was in a place to make the trade.

Eventually, he landed not far away in Arizona.

Now, cold-weather destinations could have a better chance of getting in on the mix. No one prefers to stay in a place they’re not wanted. The first priority, if Beal were to consider a new home, would be winning, the source familiar with his thinking said.

But no-trade clause aside, it won’t be easy for the Suns to unload Beal, who has $160 million over three seasons (including this one) remaining on his contract.

Phoenix’s chase for Butler is riddled with complications. The Heat believe in two types of philosophies when it comes to big-time trades. First, acquire a franchise-altering star. And second, acquire players or picks that could help them land a franchise-altering star down the line.

Beal’s no-trade clause and off-the-bench status means he wouldn’t fall into either of those categories. So now, as The Athletic’s Sam Amick wrote, is a push for the Suns to find a third team for Beal, one that is willing to take on his contract, can send Miami the pieces it desires in a trade of Butler and also be a franchise Beal would actually approve to join. Because the Suns are so expensive, they are not allowed to trade more than one player at a time. They don’t have many desirable assets at their disposal, just a 2031 first-round pick to sweeten the drink.

A trade of Nurkić wouldn’t be so simple, either. He makes $37.5 million over the next two seasons and is now a fourth-string center behind Richards, Plumlee and rookie Oso Ighodaro.

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Past the halfway point, the Suns are now 21-21, tied for 10th in the West.

The organization is clinging to hope. It might have reeled off 16 losses in 22 games after a 9-2 start, but that stretch coincided with an injury to Durant. Phoenix is still 20-12 with the former MVP in the lineup. Prorate that record over the course of the season, and the Suns are competing for second in the conference, not wallowing at the bottom of the Play-In Tournament.

But baked into Phoenix’s identity are the injuries. Booker has missed time during each of the past two seasons. Beal hasn’t played more than 60 games since 2019. Durant remains one of the world’s greatest but is 36 years old. The Suns won 49 games a season ago and excelled with their big three on the court together but still couldn’t win in the playoffs, getting swept out of the postseason in Round 1.

The biggest basketball story in Arizona could flip from Butler or Beal to Durant this summer, when the former MVP is eligible for an extension and enters the final year of his contract.

But for now, the Suns are staring at various wrinkles to iron.

Can Beal excel off the bench, where he’s been hot and cold as an instant-offense threat? Can they fix the defense with the personnel they already have? Can Richards save the rebounding? How about the rim protection? Does Nurkić ride the pine for the rest of the season?

Can they pull off a prayer for Butler or any other star without many desirables to trade? Can they find someone willing to take Beal? If they do, is it a place Beal wants to go? If it is, does that team have what Miami wants? If it does, do all the i’s dot and t’s cross with a collective bargaining agreement that has never been this restrictive for high-payroll teams? Phoenix is above the second apron. Miami is above the first. Moving salary is not easy for either organization.

And if the answer to all of those questions is no, then what is next for a franchise that mortgaged its future for a squad that hasn’t climbed past the middle?

“We understand we have to play better,” Jones said. “So our intensity is picking up a little bit, our attention to detail is picking up. And we gotta start putting some wins in that column.”

(Top photo of Bradley Beal: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)