I have seen Gerald Bourget do it, and I think someone posted that in this thread. Mark Stein has walked through it. I am just not good at internet searches. Essentially we still have some dead money on our books that is what is stopping us from doing it now for Beal. We waived and stretched some minor guys that eat up enough percentage it puts us just barely over the 15%. That's why the MLE works even though it's just a few million per season, because it squeezes us back under the 15%.
The problem with that is currently you multiply the length of the contract by 2 and add 1. So Beal has 2 years left, and we would stretch that out over 5, FIVE, years!!! It think the number currently would equate to around $17 MILLION. So you have that coming off your cap for 5 years!!! Essentially paying a ghost player. That's why I am more willing to have him play at least one more season than the average fan. We made a huge mistake, now just deal with it.
There's a scenario where we could get rid of enough other players to get under the second apron before dealing KD. That would allow us many more options in a KD trade. Possibly raising our return in a KD trade. We would have to trade and cut guys we possibly might want like Cody Martin and Nick Richards. Both have non guaranteed contracts for this upcoming season. Micic too, but no one will miss him. There's a reason the Suns asked for those three guys in trades.
So we could do a KD trade, play Beal one more season, then Beal would be an expiring contract, or we could cut him at the midway point the following season for a much smaller hit and then have that $50+ million off our books for good.
Tim Legler was saying recently it's not that far from the Suns POSSIBLY being a good team again. He told the guys on PHX, of course we have to make the right moves, but he sees the Suns being good again much faster than the casual fans would think.