Bradley Beal’s plans for 2026 free agency after signing with Clippers

Story by

Story by
Bradley Beal’s plans for 2026 free agency after signing with Clippers

Tomer Azarly · ClutchPoints

Thu, Jul 17, 2025 ·

4 min read

Bradley Beal hoping to sign long-term deal with Clippers next summer

Bradley Beal's tenure with the Phoenix Suns officially ended on Wednesday when the two sides agreed on a contract buyout that would release him from the remaining two years of his deal to hit unrestricted free agency.

Beal gave back just about $14 million in the buyout, and reports state that the guard will sign a two-year, $11 million deal with the LA Clippers for what is the remainder of their mid-level exception.

While Beal isn't expected to clear waivers until Friday, his agent Mark Bartelstein conducted an interview on Thursday morning explaining why the guard is joining the Clippers.

"Ultimately, as we looked at everything, we just thought the Clippers presented an opportunity for Brad to really be the best version of himself," Bartelstein told Front Office Sports. "To get back to being exactly who he is, which is a multiple-time All-Star, an All-NBA player, and I wanted to give him an opportunity to be all of that and more. We thought the Clippers presented that and so we sat down with Mat [Ishbia] and the Suns and worked through all this to kind of get to a spot where this was the conclusion. We're really excited for Brad and so he's going to be a Clipper."

Beal signed a five-year, $251 million max contract with the Washington Wizards back in July 2022, but was traded to the Suns just a year later. Those Phoenix teams, unfortunately, were poorly constructed and never had a chance to make any real noise in the postseason.

Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

In the buyout agreement, the Suns agreed to pay out the remainder of Beal's $96.9 million over the next five seasons — at $19,383,009 from 2025 to 2029. That sets up Beal, 32-years of age, to pursue the best basketball fit for himself as his career starts to wind down.

"Brad's value as a player in this league far far exceeds what the contract we're signing with the Clippers, but in the salary cap environment at this time, the money was not going to be the big issue right now for us," Mark Bartelstein, Bradley Beal's representation, added in his interview with Front Office Sports. "It was the fit, the opportunity, the chance like i said to play in really big games, so that player option really serves honestly as an insurance policy. Brad will certainly be a free agent this summer."The hope is everything goes well with the Clippers and the Clippers are a team that's going to have a lot of cap room this summer and the goal is to sign a long term deal with the Clippers this summer. That's the goal, but that player option is just there as a security blanket, a 'God-forbid' type of thing. And that's the purpose of it. What happens with player options is sometimes, we deal with a salary cap in the NBA that is stringent at times, it puts a lot of restrictions on what teams can do, and so if the team is getting a player for a below market value deal, because that's tone of the tools they have to pay that player, the player option will often come in place as an insurance policy to give the player something to fall back on if things don't go well, but the intention is certainly to opt out and get back into the market to reclaim your value, and that's what's going to happen with Brad. Brad doesn't like change. It's one of the reasons he stayed in Washington so long. The goal of this is to go to LA, have an awesome season, and then re-sign a long term deal with the Clippers this summer."

In his two seasons with the Phoenix Suns, Bradley Beal averaged 17.6 points, 3.9 rebounds, 4.3 assists, and 1.0 steal per game while shooting 50.5 percent from the field, 40.7 percent from three, and 90.9 percent from the free throw line. His biggest issues were his availability, where Beal played just 106 of a possible 164 regular season games.

Beal is expected to clear waivers on Friday, with an announcement of his signing a deal with the Clippers to come shortly after.