The ongoing season isn’t turning out to be too fulfilling for Bradley Beal. His injury troubles have been persistent for the better part of the last 4 months. His average scoring is lower than 20 points for the 2 consecutive season since the 2015-16 tournament. As a result, the Suns star was given a jolt back in early January with the revelation that the team will remove Beal from his starter role, alongside Jusuf Nurkic. Now, as he was reinstated to his starter role, another injury might force him to return to the bench. That is after he has recovered well enough to play again.

Before the upcoming matchup between the Phoenix Suns and the New Orleans Pelicans, Mike Budenholzer participated in a presser. He gave the unfortunate update on Bradley Beal’s condition by revealing, “Yeah no, so he’s out tonight. And, I don’t think there was one thing. In the course of an NBA game, you take a lot of hits, a lot of things happen. He left a lot out there on the court. Came in yesterday, had a great day on the (trainer) table. Put a lot of time in and again this morning, put a lot of time in. He’s not able to go. I don’t think it was one incident. Just a physical game, the wear and tear of a game. His calf kind of had some tightness.”

Beal was earlier downgraded to ‘Questionable’ due to the complications from his left calf tightness. Now, he has been declared outright ‘OUT’. It isn’t clear when exactly Beal developed the tightness. However, he was perfectly fine during the Suns’ previous matchup against the Memphis Grizzlies.

He played for 43 minutes on the court and scored 24 points, 5 rebounds and 11 assists. The matchup marked the 3 time this season that Beal’s minutes were either 40 minutes or above, with the 1 being back in December and the 2nd being in the matchup before the Grizzlies one. Therefore, one would question whether the extra minutes caused the calf ailment.

Right from the early stage of the ongoing NBA season, Bradley Beal sustained an elbow injury. He dealt with the same for a while and had just recovered before the star sustained a calf ailment. Then followed different ailments in the knee, hip, ankle and toe. Now, once again, the shooting guard is dealing with complications on his calf. In light of this, the franchise will have to figure out some things before facing the Pelicans.

How can the Phoenix Suns proceed without Bradley Beal?

According to RotoWire, Bradley Beal being sidelined due to the injury can allow Grayson Allen and Ryan Dunn to be given more playing minutes.

Grayson Allen has been more consistent than Beal this season, having played in 47 of the Suns’ 58 games. With an average playtime of 25.2 minutes, he has averaged 11 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 2.1 assists. However, he has started in only 3 of the games. As for the Suns rookie, Ryan Dunn has seen an uptick in starts this season, getting the nod in 28 of his 52 games—mainly for his defensive presence.

But despite that, his playing time has remained limited, averaging just 17.8 minutes per game. His offensive numbers? Nothing eye-popping—6.1 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 0.8 assists per game. But alongside Grayson Allen, this duo might just be able to hold things down until there’s more clarity on Bradley Beal’s injury.

With the Suns sitting at 27-31, every win matters. Whether Allen and Dunn can step up and keep Phoenix in the fight? That’s the big question.