LA Clippers shooting guard Bradley Beal has been diagnosed with a left hip fracture and will undergo season-ending surgery, league sources told The Athletic.
The injury is another blow to a Clippers team that is off to a 3-7 start, with star forward Kawhi Leonard also out due to a right ankle sprain suffered last week against the Miami Heat.
Beal, 32, played in just six games this season for the Clippers after the team signed him this past summer.
Beal initially injured his hip in Saturday night’s home loss against the Phoenix Suns, though he came back in to reach his 20-minute restriction in that game after being listed as questionable to return. When Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue was asked prior to Monday’s game against the Atlanta Hawks about Beal’s hip injury, he said there was concern Beal would miss multiple games.
Beal signed a two-year contract with the Clippers this offseason that included a 2026 player option after reaching a buyout agreement with the Phoenix Suns. The Clippers were counting on Beal to be the replacement for Norman Powell, who was traded to the Miami Heat in a three-team deal that sent power forward John Collins to LA.
Instead, Beal, who spent his first 11 seasons with the Washington Wizards and averaged more than 30 points a game in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 campaigns, was never able to get started. After missing 132 games over his previous four NBA seasons, Beal only played 121 minutes over six games with the Clippers, never reaching 22 minutes in any of them despite starting each game he played.
The Clippers limited Beal in training camp as he recovered from a right knee scope he underwent in May. Beal did not play any preseason games with James Harden or Kawhi Leonard; his lone preseason game was the finale in Golden State, when Harden and Leonard rested.
The starting lineup that Lue landed on to begin this season included Beal, Harden, Leonard, center Ivica Zubac and small forward Derrick Jones Jr. With that group starting, LA trailed by as many as 37 points in a season-opening road loss at Utah. Beal injured his back in the Clippers’ home opener against the Suns and missed two games as a result. The Clippers split last-second decisions at home in Beal’s return games, winning by two points against the New Orleans Pelicans following a Leonard buzzer-beater and losing to the Miami Heat by one point.
Beal was held out of the first leg of LA’s first back-to-back, a blowout home loss against the Oklahoma City Thunder, before playing without Leonard or Harden (out for personal reasons) in a blowout loss at Phoenix, where Beal was booed by Suns fans.
With Beal sidelined, LA has begun to use second-year shooting guard Cam Christie and third-year power forward Kobe Brown in the rotation. They also moved Collins into the starting lineup, an acknowledgement that the team Lue planned around Beal, Harden and Leonard will not be realized.
