Bradley Beal Reveals Details on Suns Trade

The Phoenix Suns weren't initially in the picture, according to Bradley Beal.

Apr 12, 2024; Sacramento, California, USA; Phoenix Suns guard Bradley Beal (3) reacts to a call during the second quarter at Golden 1 Center. Mandatory Credit: Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images / Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images

PHOENIX -- It's been over a year since the Phoenix Suns officially acquired guard Bradley Beal in a blockbuster trade that sent Chris Paul to the Washington Wizards,

According to Beal himself, the Suns' interest in his talents was just as much of a surprise to him as it was to the rest of the basketball world.

Appearing on an episode of Run Your Race, Beal walked listeners through his trade process.

"My transition to Phoenix was a complete 360. First off, Phoenix wasn't even in the picture for me to go to. That was a fly ball that came out of nowhere," Beal said.

"I'm waiting on Miami to hit me a grounder. Milwaukee, those were kind of like my two (teams)."

Beal acknowledged that for whatever reason, Miami didn't want to do a deal while the Bucks were willing to trade Khris Middleton, which Beal wasn't a fan of.

"Going through that process - I'll never forget it was two days before Father's Day in June of last year. I was in New York with wifey, just chilling and taking a day trip from D.C."

Beal revealed he was only interested in Miami until his agent brought up the Suns as a possibility.

"I said, 'Is that even an option? How are they going to do that? Are they going to trade Book?' That doesn't make any sense."

After his agent explained that Phoenix would offload either Paul or Deandre Ayton, Beal wanted to make sure his potential co-stars in Phoenix would give the green light.

"Are they cool with this? This isn't the owner just wanting to do something to do it, I want to make sure we all will make this thing work. It wasn't even an hour later, KD (texted me) 'What we doing?' Book hit me - 'What we doing?' and I didn't get that nowhere else," Beal said.

"It kind of felt like I was in college again. It kind of felt like I was getting recruited. I felt wanted."

After meeting with Phoenix brass in New York on a Saturday, Beal told his agent "get it done" - and the next day the deal was made.

"Once I got the stamp from them two (Durant and Booker) and they were like let's do this, we're three hoopers that don't care about nothing but hooping, I said 'that's where I want to be'. Can't beat the weather - that was probably my icing on the cake."

Full video:

Bradley Beal, on the process leading up to the trade:

“Milwaukee, I was on the fence. They [would’ve been] trading Middleton. The loyalty part of that … it didn’t sit right with me.

“My agent calls. I said, ‘What’s Miami talking about?

“He said, what do you think of Phoenix?”… pic.twitter.com/LQ3jklnAUy

— Brett Usher (@UsherNBA) October 8, 2024