Bradley Beal diary: ‘It’s all hands on deck’

SAN ANTONIO – The Phoenix Suns raised hopes for a first NBA title by adding three-time NBA All-Star Bradley Beal to an already star-studded lineup with forward Kevin Durant and guard Devin Booker. At the moment, however, the Suns are focused on solidifying a playoff spot and not being forced to make the postseason through the play-in tournament.

The Suns entered Wednesday in eighth place in the Western Conference, one game outside of the final guaranteed playoff spot. The road doesn’t get any easier for the Suns heading down the stretch as they face the reigning champion Denver Nuggets and their challenging altitude Wednesday night (10 p.m. ET, ESPN). With 10 games remaining, landing a top-6 playoff seed in the West will be a challenge for Phoenix.

“Well, it’s all hands on deck,” Beal told Andscape from his hotel March 22 before the Suns split the next two games against the San Antonio Spurs. “Sense of urgency at the end of the year, that’s our approach to every game. We got [10] games left. So, every [game] counts. You can win a game and move up three, four positions. And you could lose a game and be out of playoff contention or be in the play-in.

“So, every game matters and our schedule is the hardest schedule, if not one of the hardest schedules, left throughout all the teams. We play all playoff teams pretty much, and it’s a good test for us. So, we’ve been in some rough waters over the last a few spurts of games, but I think these are all just battle tests for us that are preparing us for the playoffs to come.”

Beal, his wife Kamiah Adams-Beal, and three young sons, Bradley “Deuce” II, Braylon and Braxton, moved to Phoenix after the Washington Wizards traded Beal to the Phoenix Suns in June 2023. The St. Louis native has said that he is joining his first true championship contender in his NBA career with fellow superstars Durant and Booker and coach Frank Vogel. The Suns have never won an NBA championship.

During the 2023-24 NBA season, Beal, 30, will be sharing insight into his life on and off the court in the Valley of the Sun and on the road during his monthly video and diary on Andscape. NBA players Draymond Green, Vince Carter, Trae Young, CJ McCollum, Fred VanVleet, De’Aaron Fox, Cade Cunningham, James Wiseman and Josh Jackson have participated in previous diaries.

The 6-foot-4, 207-pounder is averaging 17.9 points, 5.1 assists and 4.1 rebounds for the Suns in 43 games and has missed 27 games to injury. The following is the sixth entry of Beal’s season-long diary with Andscape. He talks about the Suns’ playoff dilemma, team morale, his Florida Gators and the NCAA tournament, playing against Nuggets star center Nikola Jokić, his wife’s “birthday month,” Boston Celtics star and “uncle” Jayson Tatum, being reunited with former Washington Wizards teammates Isaiah Thomas and John Wall and much more.

The morale of the team is awesome, superenergetic. We have a lot of guys buying in and wanting to get on the same page. We added Thad Young, who’s a great vet for us, and him giving his knowledge and his communication and him being vocal throughout has been beyond helpful. And we added I.T. [Isaiah Thomas] as well. So, we have a lot of vets who were able to utilize their voices, encourage us, and kind of bring that winning mentality, attitude and focus into the locker room. On top of that, we have a lot of champions. Damion Lee’s a champion, KD [Durant] is a champion, coach Vogel is a champion. [Assistant] coach Fiz [David Fizdale] is a champion. We have GM James Jones, who is nicknamed Champ. We have a lot of champions and championship pedigree in our organization and we lean on the backs of those guys to propel us forward and kind of give us the blueprint of how we need to move forward.

Sacrificing has been something I’ve embraced. It’s not easy, 100%. It takes a lot of work. It takes kind of training your mind to do something that you have been used to doing for so long. But I enjoy it. I feel like, especially with the dynamic that we have here, we have so much versatility, we have so much firepower, I take a lot of joy in that because I’ve never had this type of ammunition before. I’ve never been surrounded with this caliber of talent. For me it’s a joy to be able to share the floor with guys like that.

Grayson [Allen] is one of the best shooters in the NBA. Get him the ball. D-Book is a killer mentality. Give him the ball. KD is a killer mentality. Give him the ball. Eric Gordon was one of my favorite players growing up. And now I get to share the floor with him and watch him still make over 2,000 threes in his career and continue that number. It is awesome to be a part of this group. I play with another dominant big that I can add to my list of bigs that I’ve played with in Nurk [Jusuf Nurkić].

It has been a joy. It has truly been a joy. I’ve been known as a scorer all my career, but to be able to embrace more of a point guard role and being kind of our defender at times, I can get a joy in that. It’s like a new challenge for me.

Everybody wants us [Booker, Durant, Beal] to all go score 30 a night in a perfect world. But we realize that won’t happen. I think it was a game the other night, three points the other night. We won a game and I played some pretty good defense that night. It happens. I think KD shot the ball nine times the other night — which should never happen, by the way — but it happened and I think we won the game. So, it is a very fine line. We can look at it through that lens and kind of go with the opinion of the whole world and the expectation of what everybody has for the situation, or we can embrace who we are as a team and embrace our versatility and embrace the need of everybody and not just Beal, Booker and Durant.

Going to Denver is always a challenge. One, they’re the defending champs, so they’re the champs until they’re beaten. And the way that they play and compete, especially on their home floor, it is something — a you-got-to-be there-to-see-it-type of thing. The altitude works in their favor. They practice and compete in that on a yearly basis. And we come in a night or two — in the first quarter, our legs, our lungs are gasping for air. It’s a challenge every time you go into Denver. Besides all the outside pressures and obstacles that are in a way, their team as a whole meshes well, they jell together well. They compete at a high level. They have very little flaws. So, with a team like that, you got to make sure that you’re ready to go in locked-in, because they’ll make you pay for all your mistakes.

Altitude stuff is a little bit of both [hype and reality]. Your adrenaline’s going, so you’re going to be energetic. You might be on a little high more than you usually are. But at the same time, once you get up and down a few times, your mouth start feeling a little chalky. We might need to get some water in here. And then your legs get a little heavy. We always say ‘the first time out.’ You got to get through the first time out and you should be good.

Joker. He’s an MVP for a reason. He’s definitely a big body, versatile, big, skilled with amazing touch. Can’t really compare him to anybody. He is his own player. What he does, his talent, he’s a one-on-one. He’s somebody that he’s at the top of everybody’s scouting report and he makes your night hell.

NBA players care about March Madness, I want to say to a strong degree. We still have our bragging rights. We keep up with what’s going on. Looking forward to upsets and the craziness of March Madness. So, I would say, yeah, we keep up with it. I did not do a pool this year. Usually, I’m around teams and front office staff or whoever, they’ll put a little money pot together and do a little pool. But we didn’t. There is a lot of pride this year. I don’t know if that went over too well with a lot of guys on our team.

I’m about ready to chuck this [University of Florida] hat and just toss it. But my Gators went down to a tough Colorado team. It was a good game. Proud of my boys, but we came up very short this year.

My year in March Madness [in 2012] was electrifying. We were a 7 seed similar to the team this year, but we were better than our record displayed. We moved on to the Elite Eight where we played Louisville. We played great for 32 minutes. In the last eight minutes we laid an egg and we lost.

My game in the Elite Eight is kind of a surreal moment because that last game we lost was actually in Phoenix in the Footprint Center where we play [now]. I’ll never forget it. I was sitting in my locker after the game, Kenny Boynton was right next to me. He was like the one upperclassman and one of my kind of mentors on the team. He sat there, looked at me and said, ‘It’s time, bro.’ And I’m like, ‘What is he talking about?’ So, he’s like, ‘You’ll see.’ And I’m just like, ‘Whatever.’ And fast-forward. I get to the press conference. First question I’m asked, ‘So, Brad, are you going to the NBA?’ It wasn’t like, ‘How do you feel about the loss? How’s the team doing? How do you feel? What kind of game did you play?’ No. ‘Are you going to the NBA?’ And so that really hit me like, ‘Wow, this is really, really surreal. The NBA is a lot closer than I’ve ever imagined too.’

I.T. [Thomas] was one of my favorite players to compete against from his days in Boston. But when we were teammates [in Washington], he became a really good friend of mine. It was kind of tough on him, too, at the time. His body didn’t hold up the way we all wished. But it’s amazing just to see his work ethic, his IQ, his love and passion that he had for the game, his upliftment of teammates and other guys around him, his respect of the staff. He was a true pro and somebody who I was happy to be able to share the locker room with. And fast-forward now we get that same joy and an opportunity again here in Phoenix.

I’m thrilled that he’s rekindled the flame to get back into the NBA, which is a very hard task to do. We all know. But he pushed himself, he worked tremendously hard, he got his body back and now it’s all about opportunity. And he has won and I’m sure he’ll take full advantage of it. I couldn’t be happier for him.

It is tough, man. When you see players, especially like [former Wizards teammate] John [Wall], who you’ve grown up watching not be around the game, it’s hard to picture, especially with very talented guys like that. I can go down a laundry list of guys who were in my class or the class before me and were beyond talented or beyond superstars in the NBA and now they don’t have a job or it’s a struggle to find one. And that’s tough, man. It is very eye-opening for me, because you look at your career, you look at your age, you look at your production, you look at your health, all of that matters. And we’re only getting older. Time doesn’t wait for anybody.

And the one thing you learn is organizations don’t wait for anybody either. They keep building, they keep looking for what’s next. They keep looking for the next Brad Beal. They keep looking next for the next John Wall. They keep looking for next KD for the next D-Books [Booker]. We don’t get any younger and it’s up to us to maintain our bodies and continue to produce on the floor and win championships. So, it is very tough to be able to accept that sometimes when I see my boy [Wall] like that or see other guys who I know can hoop and who I know can make a difference not have an opportunity. I go into every day just thankful. From being injured my last two years, I’m joyful just being back on the floor.

In a Black community, our birthday is the entire month. It depends. Some people just do the weekend, some people do the week, some people do the month. My wife does ’em, all right. She does weekend, a week, a month, all in one. But it was awesome. We’re an entertaining family. We love to have people over. We love to have family and friends and spend time and enjoy joyous moments with our loved ones. It was a fun week. We had a few of her friends fly into town, a lot of friends that we’ve established relationships with in Arizona as well.

We just had some dinner, a fun karaoke night. If she shows any footage, she may show me singing, which may or may not have gone well, but it was fun to do. But it was a great week. We had some good dinner and [God] blessed us to see another year. We did a duet. ‘Superhuman’ is our duet. Chris Brown.

I’m a day [birthday person]. I just need my day. Just getting the 28th. June 28th. I’m great with that. Cake is a must. Vanilla cake is a must.

Uncle Jay [Jayson Tatum] creates havoc in my house, just like Kevin Durant does and Devin Booker does, because not only do I have to fight for TV time now, [my sons] want their jerseys, right? So now Uncle Jay, I got to go buy a couple No. 0 jerseys because they love Uncle Jay that much. So, they’re pushing dad lower and lower on that totem pole. I’m not really liking it, but it’s all right. You guys are killers, you guys are hoopers. So, I wouldn’t mind for my son to be fans of you guys. That is a beautiful thing.

But Uncle Jay has been just that. He’s a great brother to me and it’s awesome to see him grow up and mature into fatherhood and to embrace that role. And then just his ability to just be loving, to have a life outside of basketball. He’s a beyond busy superstar and he makes time and just takes a little moment to say what’s up to my boys. He spends time with them to shoot hoops with ’em. It doesn’t matter. He goes above and beyond, man, for the kids. Jay loves the kids and I’m happy they have a good role model like that.

The Jayson Tatum story. Let’s see. Well, it started with our parents. My mom coached his mom in high school. So, Ms. [Brandy] Cole [Tatum’s mom], let’s see, I forget what age, but she played basketball and volleyball, which are two sports my mom coached. I used to always come to practice. I remember as a little kid with my mom. And I remember just maybe two years, maybe after that year or two after that I see this little kid, little Jayson. And ever since then, I would always see him periodically as he got older and older.

I remember specifically when he hit right into middle school, he was towering over everybody. And I remember his mom coming up to me and asking could I mentor him. Could I take him under my wing and be a big brother to him? And that was an easy decision for me coming from a family of all boys, coming from four brothers. Just add one more to the mix. He embraced us, we embraced him into our family and vice versa.

We literally grew up and lived five minutes from each other, pick him up, take him to school. He wanted to go to the same high school that I went to versus going to his dad’s school. And that kind of created a little rivalry between his dad and our school because they were rivals in their natural self, but now they add a little bit more spunk because Jay didn’t want to go there. But it’s amazing to just see his journey, to see his growth. From toddler to young man to grown man to superstar to father.