It is well known that Phoenix Suns guard Bradley Beal has an incredibly rare provision in his contract – a full no-trade clause. Because of the circumstances required to qualify for one, how much power they give a player, and how much power they take away from his team, these vehicles are very rare, and Beal has the only one currently in existence in the entire NBA.
This, in turn, makes it nearly impossible to trade him. And this is unfortunate for the Suns, because they would really like to be able to.
Although Beal acquiesced to his trade to the Suns from the Washington Wizards in June 2023, no-trade clauses are not like trade bonuses (also known as trade kickers). They are inexhaustible over the life of the contract, and unlike a bonus, can be applied multiple tames. That is to say, waiving the right to veto the trade once does not mean it is waived thereafter. Beal can thus still veto any trade the Suns try to include him in, and reportedly intends to do so.
The problem the Suns currently face, though, is worse than that. As things stand, the Suns also cannot just not place Beal on waivers and cut him from the team in a way that would free up the salary cap that Beal’s contract currently clogs up. Not just “cannot” as in, it is unwise or bad strategy to do so. But “cannot” as in, they are literally prohibited from doing so.
Cut Player Salaries Now Come With Caveats
When the NBA’s latest Collective Bargaining Agreement came into force on July 1 2023, it contained several new provisions from the previous edition, one of which pertains to the amount of “dead” salary a team can carry on its books.
In this context, “dead” salary refers to money still charged to a team’s salary cap for players no longer on their playing roster. Almost always, this means players who were on guaranteed contracts, but who were placed on waivers anyway.
Previously, the percentage of a team’s salary cap that could be given over to “dead” salaries had no restrictions. Theoretically, a team could sign three maximum salary players, waive them all, rebuild the roster with minimum salaries, and have almost all of their salary payments go to players they cannot play. And while that hypothetical is clearly absurd, it was possible.
It still is possible, as long as said salaries are not “stretched”. The latest CBA, however, puts a hard limit on the amount of “dead” salary a team can have when concurrently using the “stretch” provision. And given that the point of waiving Beal for the Suns would be to use the stretch provision in the process, this becomes a real sticking point.
What Is The Stretch Provision?
The “stretch provision” is a salary cap mechanism whereby, if a team cuts a player be it via a buyout or a straight waiver, the outstanding amount is paid out over a longer period of time than the contract initially called for. Payments, quite literally, are stretched over future years, hence the name of the instrument.
Payment of actual salaries (as distinct from salary cap numbers) is something that happens automatically. However, stretching of the relevant player’s cap number is also something that a team can opt to strategically do as well. When players are cut and their contracts are reported as being “stretched”, it is the latter of these that is being referred to.
Under the stretch provision, if a player is waived between July 1 and August 31 inclusive, any remaining outstanding salary on their contract is stretched over twice the number of remaining years, plus one. A player with two remaining years would thus count against the cap over the course of five. If the player is waived between September 1 and June 30 inclusive, the current year is not stretched, but future ones are. A player with two years remaining would thus get their full salary for the current season, and their second one over the following three.
Suns Would Save $30 Million In 2025-26 Cap Alone
In the case of Beal, he has two years and slightly under $110.8 million remaining on his contract, with a $53,666,270 salary in 2025-26 and a $57,128,610 salary in 2026-27 via a player option. Were he to be waived before the end of August, then, the Suns would want to be able to stretch that remaining $110.8 million into a $22,158,976 cap hit in each of the next five seasons.
If the Suns did so, while they would still feel the hangover effects of his contract for five years into the future, the immediate financial savings once 2025-26 luxury tax and apron concerns are accounted for would be enormous. They could well be motivated to take a $110.8 million write-off, considering the tens of millions that would be saved in tax penalties over the next two seasons, in conjunction with the breaking-up of the concrete in which their roster currently finds itself.
The problem is, the Suns cannot do that. Not just realistically, but also technically. Because of previous moves that will have seemed innocuous at the time, the simple waive-and-stretch option is not available to them.
How The Stretch Provision Has Changed
The NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement is written in heavy legalese, which means sentences that go on for three weeks at a time and walls of clunky verbiage full of call-backs to other paragraphs several pages above. Nevertheless, enclosed in full lawyer speak below is the new CBA provision that makes the above Suns hypothetical impossible.
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Section 7(d)(6): (A) in no event shall a Team be permitted to elect to stretch a waived playerâs Salary if the portion of the Teamâs Team Salary representing all of the Teamâs waived players (and any other former players) in any future Salary Cap Year exceeds or as a result of the proposed stretch would exceed fifteen percent (15%) of the Salary Cap in effect during the Salary Cap Year in which the election occurs; (B) any Team that stretches a playerâs Salary for Salary Cap purposes may not subsequently sign or acquire such player prior to the July 1 following the end of the last Season of the playerâs Contract (including, for clarity, any Option Year); and (C) a Team that terminates a playerâs Contract and subsequently signs or acquires such player prior to July 1 following the end of the last Season of the playerâs Contract (including, for clarity, any Option Year) may not make an election to stretch the Salary of such terminated Contract pursuant to Section 7(d)(6)(i) above.
Essentially, per caveat (A) above, a team is limited to spending no more than 15% of the salary cap in any given season on stretched salaries. And the Suns will not be able to stay under that threshold with a straight waive/stretch of Beal, because of the long-departed pair of Nassir Little and E.J. Liddell.
Who Are Nassir Little And E.J. Liddell Again?
Little was acquired by the Suns as a part of the trade that sent Deandre Ayton and Toumani Camara to the Portland Trail Blazers back in September 2023, and spent the following season with the team. He was however waived last August in a cost-cutting move, with the stretch provision being used on his salary just in time for the aforementioned September 1 cut-off date.
Similarly, Liddell was acquired by the Suns from the Atlanta Hawks in July 2024 in a salary-dump of David Roddy, and was waived and stretched just one month later, on the same day as Little. Unlike Little, Liddell never played with the Suns, yet he remains on their cap due to the stretch provision being used on his guaranteed contract.
Despite both being off of the Suns’ roster for almost a year – and in Liddell’s case, never really being on it to begin with – those seemingly small-potatoes uses of the stretch provision are nevertheless now enough to prevent Bradley Beal from receiving the same.
The Maths Of All That
As a result of his $21.75 million guaranteed contract (which still had three years left to run on it) being waived, Little will continue to count on the Suns’ cap for $3,107,143 for every season up to and including 2030-31. Alongside that, the stretching of Liddell’s relatively meagre $2,120,694 in guaranteed salary has added $706,898 to the Suns’ cap for each of the 2024-25, 2025-26 and 2026-27 seasons.
The Suns used the stretch provision on the pair – and Little in particular – to save on immediate-term luxury tax payments and to “create flexibility”, or so it was said. As it turns out, though, it has instead cost them flexibility down the line. Such can be the drawback of making decisions in the moment.
Liddell’s $706,898, Little’s $3,107,143 and Beal’s provisional $22,158,976 cap numbers cumulatively add up to $25,973,017. The exact amount of the NBA’s salary cap for the 2025-26 season is not known for definite at this time, and will not be until the end of the upcoming July moratorium – however, the most recent official NBA estimate projected it would come in at $154,647,000.
15% of $154,647,000 is $23,197,050. And so the Suns’ combined stretch hit of $25,973,017 is, simply, too much. Because of the similarly-named Little/Liddell pairing, then, a straight waive-and-stretch of Beal’s contract is no longer possible.
Convincing Beal To Leave Salary On The Table
Of course, the Suns could waive Beal without stretching him. It would not achieve much, but it could be done, on point of fact. And they could also still potentially save some money on his outstanding $110.8 million via a “buyout”, if they can get Beal and his representatives to agree to one.
A “buyout” is the common term for what in practice is a renegotiation of the amount of salary a player is owed, concurrent with a waiving. A player agrees to give back some of their owed salary in exchange for hitting the free agency market immediately, something usually done in conjunction with their incumbent team allowing them to gauge what offers they would get on the open market before they even hit it. This is a common-enough practice, albeit not often at this scale.
Furthermore, if a buyout is for a suitably low amount, the stretch provision can be used on whatever amount remains, so long as the 15% threshold is gotten under, If Beal agreed to a buyout of, say, $80 million of the $110.8 million he is owed, the Suns could stretch that amount over five years instead, for an $16 million annual hit. And that would be enough to fit under the 15% limit, even with Liddell and Little in tow.
The Best Option Might Be To Do Nothing, For Now
Buying out Beal, though, would not actually achieve all that much. There is not much of a market for him, considering his greatly-diminished play, and nor is there a lot of free agency money to work with.
The above buyout hypothesis relies upon Beal being able to make back the $31 million he would be giving up over two years back from another team. While this is possible with a non-taxpayer mid-level exception, it still relies upon the Suns being willing to give Beal $80 million to do nothing, as opposed to giving him $110.8 million to not do enough. It also relies on Beal being willing to leave Phoenix, which he is said to not want to do. And there is, of course, even less of a trade market for him.
Beal’s situation is testing the long-standing NBA adage that no contract with only two years left to run is ever completely untradeable. It may therefore be best to just stay the course.
Even if Beal’s play does not improve, and his trade value does not increase any, Beal could always be stretched next summer, counting as $19 million against the cap for three future years instead of $22 million over five. This is a choice available to the Suns, among many. Because of the decision to waive Nassir Little, though, they have inadvertently taken the option with the most immediate rewards off of their own table. Who knew?
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