Bradley Beal is going to run it back with the Los Angeles Clippers. The three-time All-Star has agreed to a two-year, $13.2 million deal to stay in Los Angeles, a massive drop from the max money he was making a year ago but a chance to actually contend for a title on a healthy team.
The deal includes $9.4 million in guaranteed money with a partially guaranteed player option in Year 2. Beal, 33, had declined his $5.6 million player option earlier in the summer to test the market.
That market came back thinner than he expected. Miami was in the mix at one point, particularly as insurance for the Giannis trade fallout, but the Heat pivoted to Klay Thompson pursuits. New Orleans and Sacramento kicked the tires but neither wanted to guarantee real minutes to a guard coming off a season-ending hip injury.
Los Angeles was the obvious landing spot. Beal spent last season with the Clippers before the November hip injury ended his year. He appeared in only six games. He put up 8.2 points per game before going down. The tape was not encouraging, but Beal was working through the tail end of a nagging hamstring issue in those six games. The Clippers believe the version of Beal they signed a year ago is still in there.
The bet for Los Angeles is health, not upside. If Beal plays 65 games, they have a real veteran scorer coming off the bench behind James Harden. If he plays 30, they are no worse off than they were last season. On a two-year, non-max deal, the downside is manageable.
For Beal, this is the trade-off. He gave up money and market to stay somewhere he already knows and to play with Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, and Ivica Zubac on a team that has real playoff aspirations. He is not chasing a starting job anymore. He is chasing rings.
The optics are still not great. Beal was one of the highest-paid players in the sport for years and was, for a long stretch, a legitimate 25-a-night scorer. Coming to the Clippers as an over-the-hill bench veteran on a minimum-plus deal is not the ending anyone in Washington or Phoenix would have predicted five years ago.
But the game is not about how it looked five years ago. It is about what you can do right now. Beal at 33, post-hip surgery, is a role player. He can still get his own shot. He can still hit a step-back three. He can still handle the ball for stretches when Harden needs a rest. That is a real player.
The Clippers have quietly put together a rotation that could win 50 games if their top four stay upright. Beal is a piece of that. He is also a reminder that the NBA does not care about your resume when your body slows down.
Sign the deal. Stay healthy. Contribute. That is the plan. Beal knows the assignment.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
