The Clippers’ decision to bring Bradley Beal back raised plenty of eyebrows, and for good reason. A 33-year-old veteran coming off a season-ending hip injury after just eight games in Los Angeles does not usually scream obvious fit, especially for a team that has been built around youth.
But there’s a different angle here that has not gotten nearly enough attention: Beal gives the Clippers something most teams would love to have, an All-Star-caliber scorer coming off the bench. When he’s healthy, he can hurt defenses at all three levels in the half-court, and that kind of weapon changes the shape of a second unit.
That’s why there’s real buzz around what his role could mean for LA. Beal not only has a legitimate chance to enter the Sixth Man of the Year conversation, but if he comes in with a chip on his shoulder and plays to his level, he could also find himself in the mix for Most Improved Player.
There’s a strong case that Beal will come off the bench, even though he has the talent and experience to start. The fit next to Darius Garland makes Kris Dunn the better option in the starting group, and that opens the door for Beal to anchor the reserve unit.
Last season never really gave the Clippers a full read on him. Beal shot 36.8% from three, but beyond that, he never looked fully settled on either end of the floor. That said, eight games is a tiny sample, and he was trying to find his footing as a ball-dominant scorer alongside Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, and Ivica Zubac in Tyronn Lue’s system.
The larger picture is more encouraging. Just one season earlier, Beal averaged 17.0 points for the Phoenix Suns while shooting 49.7% from the field and 38.6% from deep. Those numbers point to the kind of production the Clippers were betting on when they brought him back.
And now, with more time to recover, absorb the system, and clean up what went wrong, Beal is set up for a chance to make this move look a whole lot smarter than it did at first glance.
In Other News...
Kawhi Leonard Investigation Keeps Dragging The Clippers Back Into Spotlight
Nearly a year into the NBAs review of Kawhi Leonards old Raptors arrangement, the leagues attention keeps circling back to a matter the Clippers would probably prefer to leave in the rearview mirror. The investigation has become a major topic among league executives, and every new report seems to pull Los Angeles back into the conversation, even though the central questions reach back to Leonards move to Toronto.
Recent reporting added another layer of confusion when it suggested the league had found no evidence implicating Steve Ballmer, only for the NBA to push back and say those accounts contained significant inaccuracies. For the Clippers, the issue is less about the public back-and-forth than the fact that the story is still alive at all, with the league continuing to examine whether Leonards Raptors-related deal crossed the line on salary-cap rules. [Read more 🡒]
Nuggets Just Made A Peyton Watson Move Fans Will Debate
The Clippers latest offseason move came out of a complicated three-team deal that sent Peyton Watson from Denver to Cleveland, shifted Cam Whitmore to the Cavaliers, and added more draft capital into the mix for the Nuggets. From Los Angeles side, the most immediate part of the transaction is familiar enough in this league: a useful rotation piece changing teams as front offices try to keep reshaping the edges of a roster that still has bigger questions to answer.
What makes this one worth watching in Clippers circles is how the deal was structured and what it says about the teams flexibility moving forward. Max Strus is headed to Los Angeles, and the Clippers are able to take him in using the $17 million trade exception from the John Collins sign-and-trade, a reminder that their summer bookkeeping can still open real roster doors even after the headline names are off the board. [Read more 🡒]