Bradley Beal's contract is a problem as the NBA's trade deadline approaches. The Phoenix Suns guard is currently in the third season of a five-year, $251 million contract he signed with the Washington Wizards.

To understand the state of the 2025 NBA trade deadline, with one week to go and one Jimmy Butler still in a standoff with his own team, you have to go back to 2022. With the 3 p.m. ET deadline on Feb.

This presupposes that the trade for Beal is the original roster construction problem in Phoenix that must be solved -- that under the new collective bargaining agreement, building a team around three max salary players, one of whom is performing far below a max level, is untenable.