Salary cap sets: Here’s the complication for a Bradley Beal waive-and-stretch

The Phoenix Suns now have the exact target for getting under the second apron for the 2025-26 season, and with it, the more exact numbers for the dire situation in which they might decide to waive and stretch guard Bradley Beal if they cannot find a suitable trade.

The NBA on Monday set the salary cap at $154,647,000 for 2025-26.

It also set a minimum team salary ($139.2 million), first apron level ($195.9 million) and second apron ($207.8 million).

Beal’s second season in Phoenix went about as poorly as the first. Injury-limited to 53 games for the second year in a row and having lost a starting role, he averaged 17.0 points and 3.7 assists on 50% shooting and 39% accuracy from deep this past year.

The Suns’ acquisition of Jalen Green from the Kevin Durant trade further leads to the assumption the team will trade Beal or look at buying him out altogether. How they do the latter gets complicated.

While eating his salary and waiving him soon seems less likely than riding with him on the roster into the season, a waive-and-stretch of Beal would take the $110 million total owed over the 2025-26 and 2026-27 seasons and impact Phoenix’s salary cap over five seasons.

So instead of eating $55 million for each of the next two years, that amount would be cut to about $22.1 million over five seasons. It would be enough for the Suns to drop out of this restrictive second apron cap tier:

Tie 4 pic.twitter.com/wGt8dSK6oW

— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) June 30, 2025

Waiving and stretching Beal’s contract would move the Suns into the below tier of the tax rules that the majority of the other teams operate under:

Tier 2

20 out of the 30 teams reside in this tier pic.twitter.com/M21kClwFwX

— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) June 30, 2025

Mostly notably, the Suns getting into the above tier would give them a mid-level contract to pay a likely rotation player. It would also free them of the restrictions like the inability to aggregate players in trades.

Here’s the key problem, though: The Suns cannot waive and stretch Beal unless the team’s total stretched money does not exceed 15% of the salary cap.

Beal’s amount ($22.1 million) is only 14.3% of the cap.

However, he is not the only waived-and-stretched player on the books. The Suns last summer waived and then stretched forwards Nassir Little ($3.1 million) and E.J. Liddell ($706,898), and their combined salaries push the Suns beyond the 15%. Beal would have to give up some money to depart Phoenix with the waive-and-stretch provision.

The necessary gift on his end to help the Suns would amount to $2.7 million a year, which multiplies to $13.8 million in full, The Athletic’s Fred Katz reported.

That sacrifice is not out of the realm of possibility, but an obvious hurdle. For example, former Suns center Deandre Ayton pushed for a buyout from the Portland Trail Blazers on the last year of his $35 million contract. He gave up $10 million of that, reports Jake Fischer, because he had that strong of a desire to find a new home.

Beal’s willingness to forfeit that much cash does not appear to be on the radar, nor does a desire to push for a new home.

What’s the latest on the Bradley Beal trade front? 

The Suns have reportedly remained on the hunt for a Beal trade partner, as they did in February. And as they found before that trade deadline, that market is not matching the desires of Beal, who joins LeBron James as the only players with a no-trade clause in their current contracts.

“The team is in somewhat of a similar space to where they were leading into the trade deadline,” Katz told Arizona Sports’ Wolf & Luke on Monday.

“There are places he’d be willing to consider, but he’s obviously not just going to get out for the sake of getting out. I think if the Suns came to him and said they wanted him, then he would be happy to stay. I don’t think the Suns are going to go to him and say that to him.”

Katz reports that Beal is not only wanting to find a winning situation but one that satisfies his desires financially and helps him remain close to his family and young children, who have moved with him to Phoenix.

“I think the question has to be, ‘What teams does Bradley Beal have interest in, right?’ As we’ve seen, the Suns can find other teams to have a conversation about Beal,” Katz said. “You got to find a place that he wants to go to. At least so far, I haven’t really found a place that I think he would want to go to that makes sense for them to take him in from a basketball perspective.”

Related

Suns make Mark Williams trade with Hornets officialSuns will not bring back Cody Martin, freeing up cap spacePG Collin Gillespie re-signs with Suns on standard contractSuns retain Nick Richards, fully guarantee $5 million for 2025-26Report: Chris Paul reunion with Suns in free agency is a possibilityNFL OL Andrus Peat, brother of Koa, announces retirement