The Suns Have Suddenly Decided To Bench Bradley Beal At A Very Interesting Time

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The big question in the NBA right now is probably where the hell does Jimmy Butler end up now that he's demanded his trade out of Miami. He's not exactly an easy player to move given his age, salary and contract structure, so Pat Riley's options are limited. You can understand why he doesn't want to give Butler away for free, or for players that don't exactly move the needle, but he also doesn't exactly have a ton of leverage to operate with. 

Given the fact that Butler makes $48M this year and has a player option next year, there aren't going to be a ton of teams out there that are going to give up the farm just to bring in a player who might walk at the end of the season. You need that perfect balance between a high salary player and a situation that may not be going all that well at the moment.

Why is that significant? Well….

The benching of Nurkic is whatever. Anyone who has watched any Suns basketball this season could tell you that's a no brainer decision. He's pretty much unplayable. But to me, there's more at play here. You know the drill!

If the Suns feel like they need to find ways to reset a little bit, there's really only one way to truly do that. You have to get off of Bradley Beal's contract. Given his no trade clause, that's not exactly easy. Unless he's OK with it, you can't move him. So how do you get him to waive that clause and make a deal?

You bench him. You piss him off. 

Remember when Shams doubled and tripled down on the Suns being in the mix for Butler? Well now that we know everything Shams reported was correct, to then get this move from the Suns tells you something is in the works here. It made no sense when Shams originally said it because the only logical way was with Beal's salary, but why would he want to leave PHX?

I'd say being benched is one way to get him to want to leave. His money is guaranteed so that's whatever, may as well go somewhere where he can start. Maybe that's MIA, maybe that's to a 3rd team 

The tea leaves are pretty much telling us something is about to go down. Is bringing Bradley Beal off the bench and starting Ryan Dunn really going to save the Suns? That feels like a stretch. To me, this is the Suns saying 

"OK, what could we look like if Beal wasn't here"

The timing of it is too hard to ignore. The Suns get leaked as a Butler destination, then he demands his trade, now Beal gets benched who just so happens to be the salary needed in a Jimmy Butler trade? I mean come on. Just rip the bandaid off and pull the trigger. 

Why would Beal say yes to Detroit? Well for starters they need him. With Ivey out for the year with a broken leg, they need Beal's scoring/playmaking and it would give Cade some additional talent to play next to. Also, the Pistons are just 3 games back of a top 4 seed in the East and only 1 game back of a top 6. Is it crazy to think it's more likely they make the playoffs than the Suns do? If Beal wants to play and wants to be on a playoff team, I can see him waiving his no trade clause to end up in DET or MIA. Remember, he did want to go to MIA back when he was on the Wizards before he was shipped to the Suns.

All I'm saying is it feels like that Shams bomb announcing some sort of massive Beal/Butler trade is coming. Maybe they're just working on the picks and salary filler. Muti-team trades take time, but the first step is getting Beal to be OK with it. Sending him to the bench when he was supposed to be one of your Big 3 is certainly a decent way to do just that.