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Bradley Beal explains rough end to season, relationship with Frank Vogel and more

Phoenix Suns star guard Bradley Beal is being heavily criticized after his poor performance in Sunday’s 122-116 Game 4 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, as the Suns were swept in the first round.

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Beal finished with nine points on 4-of-13 shooting (1-of-5 from 3), two assists and six turnovers (five in the fourth quarter), fouling out after playing 31 minutes.

“It’s a s—– feeling,” Beal said in his exit interview yesterday. “You have huge expectations for yourself as a team, and obviously individually to contribute and be a part of something really big. That series just sucked and obviously the last game for me was horrible, so it’s hard to process, but you’re a man, you take it in stride and learn how to get better from it and look forward to the summer to get better, how we can be better, how I can be better and that’s it. It is hard to process.”

This came after Beal said that he “would be damned” if the Suns were swept after Game 3.

Beal opened his interview, trying to make light of the situation and saying, “I’d be damned, huh?”

With this being Beal’s first year in the Valley and the Suns on the hook for his massive five-year, $251 million contract for at least the next two seasons, this is not what fans wanted to see from Beal at all to close the season. Devin Booker scored a playoff career-high 49 points in the Game 4 loss, while Kevin Durant had 33 points on 12-of-17 shooting.

Beal’s rough outing boiled over even more for a viral moment in which Beal appeared to blow off first-year coach Frank Vogel on the way to the bench with  5:52 left in the third quarter and the Suns trailing 76-75. Beal had just picked up his fourth foul before being subbed out.

“I didn’t see (the clip),” Beal said. “I was frustrated with fouls, and I knew I was coming out, it wasn’t nothing against coach. Oh damn, I’m sorry if, it probably did look bad, but it wasn’t. I was more frustrated with myself and being in foul trouble. Like, I knew I was coming out the game. He was doing his job. He was being smart, saving me. Nah, it wasn’t nothing towards coach.”

This interaction came two days after Beal and Vogel had a heated conversation in Game 2, which both parties said postgame was a heat of the moment type of exchange (via PHNX’s Gerald Bourguet).

With Beal tied to Phoenix and having a no-trade clause in his contract, it appears his future is here in the Valley. However, there have inevitably been questions about Vogel’s future given the massive disappointment the season was for the Suns, who finished the regular season 49-33 and the No. 6 seed in the West.

Vogel said before Game 4 that he had the “full support” of Mat Ishbia heading into next season.

Beal was asked if he would like Vogel back as head coach.

“I think Frank’s a great coach,” Beal said. “I think he’s a proven winner. He has a ring behind him. That’s not really a question I like answering because I’m not responsible for coaches having jobs, being hired or being fired or whatever. I love the staff that we had. For me, this was like an open book for me because it was new, Frank’s new, staff was new. I was going into everything with just an open mindset, just welcoming everything and learning kind of everybody along the fly. And Frank’s an awesome guy, and he’s a great coach. What that looks like, it’s not up to me.”

Beal and Vogel shared a moment after Beal’s interview (via 12 News’ Cam Cox).

In his 12th NBA season, Beal finished his first year in Phoenix averaging his lowest point total since his 2015-16 season at 18.2 points per game on 51/43/81 shooting splits, 5.0 assists and 4.4 rebounds across 53 games, as he was plagued by various injuries early in the season. The team’s Big 3 of Beal, Booker and Durant went 26-15 across 41 regular-season games played together.

“In retrospect, we won 49 games, that’s a lot of games,” Beal said. “And I missed roughly 30 games, like that’s a lot of games. We’re a 50-win team, not saying we’d have won every game if I’d have played. But we’d be in a totally different position if everybody was healthy the whole year.  Nonetheless, I think, obviously, you have the the highs and lows of the season. Everybody has them, but I think there’s also some games that we wish we would have had back, some games that we know we could have won and probably should have won that may have cost us in the end.

“But I mean the chips fall where they do. I think we still had a good regular season, I think it was still successful. Still had a winning season, winning record. And that’s something that we can build on, for sure, but there’s still room for improvement, 100%.”

Beal added on to this saying that there is more in store for this team in the seasons to come, as their whole starting 5 is currently under contract for at least the next two seasons.

“We didn’t look at this thing as a one-year thing, and we’re gonna come in, and we only got this year to figure it out, like, no, we got time,” Beal said. “You don’t want to use that as like a cop-out, but just 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.

“And obviously, we still have a lot of room to grow, we all have to be better, I gotta 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. We’re not gonna sit here and say it’s easy. Everything happened this summer, the moves were made and everybody had that, ‘Oh, this is it,’ but you still got to work out the kinks. You still got to make sure it fits well, and everybody’s on the same page, and we’re working towards that same goal. I think everybody has that mindset, it just didn’t fall.”

Bradley Beal’s Playoff Collapse Raises Questions for Suns’ Future

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Brendan Mau is a senior writer covering the Phoenix Suns and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @Brendan_Mau

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