8:40 pm: Beal’s new contract is official, the Clippers announced.
7:01 pm: Free agent guard Bradley Beal is re-signing with the Clippers on a two-year, $13.2MM contract, agent Mark Bartelstein tells Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link).
The second season (2027/28) will be a player option, which will be partially guaranteed for $3MM, according to Law Murray of The Athletic (Twitter link).
Beal turned down his $5.62MM player option for the 2026/27 season in late June in order to become an unrestricted free agent. It was a somewhat surprising decision, given that the 33-year-old appeared in just six games in 2025/26 before being sidelined due to a hip injury that required season-ending surgery.
However, reporting at the time indicated that the two sides had mutual interest in a reunion, and Marc Stein recently reiterated that Beal returning to the Clippers was still in play. The team will use Beal’s Non-Bird rights to give him a small raise off his previous salary.
Charania hears Beal explored his options in free agency before ultimately deciding to re-sign with Los Angeles (Twitter link). The veteran shooting guard was linked multiple times to the Heat, but there was never any indication that Miami made him a top offseason priority.
Beal signed a two-year, $10.98MM contract with the Clippers last summer with the expectation that he’d play a significant role in the rotation and help make up for the backcourt scoring the club lost when it traded Norman Powell to Miami.
Even before the injury, Beal was playing a modest role despite starting all six of the games he played, averaging 8.2 points on .375/.368/.750 shooting in 20.2 minutes per contest. Although those six games are by far the fewest the veteran guard has ever played in a single season, injuries have been a recurring problem for him in recent years — he hasn’t made more than 60 regular season appearances since 2018/19.
While 2025/26 was certainly an anomaly in terms of Beal’s production, his numbers have fallen off considerably since he ranked second in the league in points per game (31.3) during the ’20/21 campaign. He made 53 appearances (32.1 MPG) with Phoenix in ’24/25, averaging 17.0 PPG, 3.7 APG, 3.3 RPG and 1.1 SPG on .497/.386/.803 shooting.
Assuming the Clippers finalize their Kawhi Leonard trade, they’ll have 15 players on fully or partially guaranteed standard contracts, plus Cam Christie on a non-guaranteed deal. The team is also said to have sign-and-trade interest in Peyton Watson and still might re-sign restricted free agent Bennedict Mathurinso re-signing Beal could create a bit of a roster crunch.
It’s possible Beal could start at shooting guard alongside point guard Darius Garland. No. 5 overall pick Keaton Wagler will be in the backcourt mix as well, along with Kris Dunn, Kobe Sanders and Jordan Miller.
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