Bradley Beal Sends Strong Warning Amid Suns’ Jimmy Butler Trade Interest

“If so, I need to be addressed because I hold the cards,” Beal told reporters after his first game in a new role as Suns’ Sixth Man. “Until I’m addressed and somebody says something different, then I’ll be a Sun.”

Beal scored 25 points off the bench to help the Suns snap a four-game losing skid with a 109-99 win over the Joel Embiid-less Philadelphia 76ers on the road on January 6.

Before the game, Phoenix coach Mike Budenholzer explained that his decision to let both Beal and veteran center Jusuf Nurkic come off the bench was to shake things up and purely a game strategy.

“I think we just feel like we needed to make a change,” Suns coach Mike Budenholzer told reporters, per The Arizona Republic’s Duane Rankin. “Throughout a 48-minute game, you gotta figure out your best combinations, your best ways to try and have success.

“They are two important players to us, two very good players for us, we just felt like we needed to make a change.”

Suns Pushing Bradley Beal Out the Door?

ESPN’s senior NBA insider Brian Windhorst, however, said there’s more to it in the Suns’ move to remove Beal from the starting lineup.

“(The Suns) absolutely are trying to trade Bradley Beal,” ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said during a First Take appearance on January 7. “… So they put him on the bench. Now you may say, ‘Why would you do that? If you’re trying to trade a player, why would you put him on the bench?’ And that’s because…the only way they can trade him is if he says, ‘I’m OK to be traded.’ So instead of trying to build him up, they have to violate the cardinal rule (of boosting a player’s trade value) and put him on the bench.

“Now I know that there were schematic reasons why they did it, and Mike Budenholzer tried to explain. But they’re basically trying to make him feel unwelcome in Phoenix so that he will waive that no-trade clause.”