Bradley Beal says Suns would be in a ‘totally different position’ if he’d stayed healthy all season

A lot is being said about Phoenix‘s campaign after being swept by Minnesota in the playoff’s first-round series. The expectation was very high at the start of the year, especially as they boasted one of the best Big 3 stars in the league, consisting of none other than Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal. 

This last one lamented the fact that the squad suffered poor health throughout the season, and even dared to say that the team’s reality would be completely different today if they hadn’t endured this lack of continuity.

“I mean, in retrospect we won 49 [regular-season] games,” the former Wizards said when looking back at their year. “That’s a lot of games. And I missed what, 30 games, roughly? That’s a lot of games. I’m not saying we’d have won every game if I’d have played, but we would be in a totally different position if I’m healthy the whole year, if everybody’s healthy the whole year.”

Beal started out his first season in Arizona with nerve pain down his legs and lower back tightness. Sometime later he suffered an ankle and hamstring strain, followed by a broken nose and finally a concussion. The star guard ended up competing in 53 out of 82 possible regular-season matches.

“We didn’t look at this thing as a one-year thing and we’re going to come in and just, we only got this year to figure it out,” he said on Monday. “No, we’ve got time. You don’t want to use that as a cop-out, but the reality we live in, that’s the game plan. We have a window. Yeah, it’s a short window, but we have a window, so we want to maximize it as much as possible.”

While Devin, KD and Bradley played together for exactly half of regular season, the team posted a 26-15 mark during this span, which was potentially a 52-win pace. “And obviously, we still have a lot of room to grow. We all have to be better. I’ve got to be better. And we all have to be better as an organization and move towards that goal of winning the title, which isn’t easy,” the veteran acknowledged.

Beal also wanted to point out that the squad endured many changes this summer, and good things need time. “We’re not going to sit here and say it’s easy. Everything happened this summer and moves were made. Everybody had that [mindset that], ‘Oh, this is it.’ But you still have to work out the kinks.”

Beal went viral for saying that he’d be damned if he was ever swept in a playoff series, which eventually happened this past Sunday

Before the start of Game 4, Bradley pledged to his team and fans that the Suns would not get swept entirely by the Timberwolves. “I’ve never been swept a day in my life, so I’ll be damned if that happens,” he said, and then only scored 9 points before fouling out in Phoenix’s elimination on Sunday evening.

The ex-Washington star had a nightmare of a performance in Game 4, only dropping in 4-of-13 with 6 turnovers that night. “There’s always a first,” he said after suffering his first-ever postseason sweep.

"I'll be damned, man." 😅

Bradley Beal after playoff elimination

(via @YoungNBA)pic.twitter.com/797haQFIlU

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) April 29, 2024

The truth is, that even when Booker, Durant and Beal shared the floor together (862 minutes during regular season), the team posted a 120.5 offensive rating, a 114.0 defensive rating and a plus 6.6 net rating.

“I think injuries really shortened the timeframe that we had to be the group that we wanted to be,” teammate Grayson Allen shared this week. “I like the group that we have. I feel like we have enough. We had enough. So [we’ve] just got to come back and be better and hopefully the continuity helps.