Why Bradley Beal and the Clippers needed each other after veteran flamed out with Suns

As widely suspected, the Los Angeles Clippers had a plan. They didn’t just dump Norman Powell to avoid overpaying him on his next contract; they effectively swapped him for John Collins and Bradley Beal, the latter of whom will reportedly join the team on a two-year, $11 million contract (with a player option on Year 2) once he has cleared waivers.

Aside from the Phoenix Suns’ puzzling decision to waive Beal (and pay him $19.2 million annually for the next five years), everything about this makes sense. This is a right-place, right-time, right-player, right-price situation.

Right place, right time 

In Phoenix, on an enormous contract that included a no-trade clause, Beal came to be seen as a burden. In Los Angeles, on a deal that will pay him $5.3 million this season, he’s a bargain. He’s joining a deep, veteran team not as the third member of a Big 3 but as another piece of an increasingly interesting puzzle.

With the Suns, Beal’s defensive limitations were magnified because the roster was top-heavy and small. This won’t be a problem with the Clippers, who had the league’s third-best defense last season and added Brook Lopez this summer. Beal won’t make All-Defense next year, but I bet he’ll look a lot feistier on a team that A) isn’t in a collective malaise and B) has Ivica Zubac and/or Lopez protecting the paint and a whole bunch of long, switchable wings.

Offensively, Beal should be in an ideal environment, too. In some ways, teaming up with James Harden and Kawhi Leonard isn’t that different to what he just experienced next to Devin Booker and Kevin Durant, but, in this situation, everybody knows who the point guard is. With Harden running the show and Leonard still capable of drawing two to the ball, Beal will find plenty of opportunities to attack tilted defenses. And when Beal initiates the offense himself, the Clippers’ screeners and floor spacers will make his life easier than ever. It’s unclear how exactly coach Tyronn Lue will manage the rotation, but Lue is renowned specifically for his mixing and matching.

Beal has never played for a team that advanced beyond the second round of the playoffs, and he hasn’t made it that far since 2017. At his introductory press conference in Phoenix two years ago, he said he was excited to “play with two Hall of Famers” and “chase this ring.” That stint didn’t go how he hoped, but now he has what amounts to a do-over. The Clippers have the same aspirations as the Suns did and a much more balanced roster.

Right player, right price

Los Angeles’ cap sheet paints a clear picture: Lawrence Frank’s front office wants to preserve its medium- and long-term flexibility. Zubac is the only player who is owed any guaranteed money beyond the 2026-27 season, and, aside from Leonard’s $50.3 million salary that year, there’s not much money tied up beyond this coming season, either. (Harden, Lopez and Nicolas Batum signed two-year deals this summer; in Year 2, Harden’s deal is partially guaranteed and Lopez’s and Batum’s are completely non-guaranteed.) A hefty contract extension for the 32-year-old Powell did not fit into the plan.

In the short term, though, the Clippers want to win. If the Powell-for-Collins trade seemed puzzling, then, it was because Powell and Harden (who had a 28.6% usage rate in 2024-25, his highest since his days with the Houston Rockets) did everything they could to keep the offense afloat when Leonard was out of the lineup last season. Powell’s departure left them with a serious shortage of shot creation.

You did not have to be an insider, then, to figure out that Los Angeles made that move with an eye on Beal. By adding the former All-Star on the cheap, the Clippers have found the scoring guard they needed and put together a roster that, on paper at least, can challenge the best of the West. It’s an old team with health concerns, but it has the playmaking, shooting, perimeter defense, rim protection and lineup versatility to be genuinely dangerous.

Unlike Powell, Beal is definitively not coming off a career season. His 21.9% usage rate was the lowest he’d posted since his rookie year, and the Suns were outscored by eight points per 100 possessions with him on the court. Beal missed 35 games, his at-rim shot frequency declined and was removed from the starting lineup for six weeks. He still, however, scored efficiently (59.8 TS%), and made 40.6% of his catch-and-shoot 3s. He has gravity all over the court, and he’ll develop pick-and-roll chemistry with Zubac and Collins in short order.

On the strength of its defense and depth, Los Angeles won 50 regular-season games last year even though Leonard missed more than half the season and his former co-star, Paul George, had left the previous summer. Now, the Clippers are betting that their defense and depth will allow their new guys to be their best selves. Collins was largely forgotten about with the Utah Jazz, and Beal was maligned with the Suns, but the former gives them an archetype they’ve never had and the latter fills the void they’d recently created. There’s a track record of players appearing rejuvenated after joining the Clippers — Batum, Kris Dunn and Bogdan Bogdanovic are three examples on the current roster — and there’s no reason Beal can’t be next.