Holy Sh*t - Someone might be interested in trading for John Wall

Amen. Could be 6 man of the year playing 20 mins and being the focus of the offense with the second unit. He can still score. Besides he will probably get hurt again and sit most of the season anyway. Do not give up assets to get rid of him!!!! If Wall won’t come off the bench, then he is the bad guy, not the Rockets. Ex-Superstars like Rose and Carmelo have been applauded for taking a secondary role on their way back to relevance. If Silas and Stone don’t have the balls to play him as a bench player then they have to go.

 

Some on here are so eager to get rid of him but, as of right now, the dude as ZERO value, perhaps even negative value. Like, why are you going to trade the guy now if it means giving up assets? Let him play out next season and see what happens.

1. There could be a fringe playoff team desperate enough to take that gamble/contract like the Knicks. They might not require any additional picks to acquire Wall.

2. He could suck, end up rotting at the end of the bench, and hate his life so much that he's willing to accept a buyout at a significant discount. Sure a buyout won't take his salary off of the books for cap purposes but if he's desperate enough to leave let him do it at a huge discount.

3. He could suck, end up rotting at the end of the bench, and hate his life so much that he's willing to be a locker room cancer just to be traded. This could be a realistic scenario but that would require John Wall to be very very stupid. Like, "I'm Thomas Hamilton and I need more minutes, Rudy!" stupid.

Here's my glass-half-full thinking:

John Wall's contract runs through the 2022-2023 season, with the last year being a player option he will 100% pick up at $47 million. If the NBA Gods decide to bless us this year and allow us to keep a Top 4 pick, great. If it's the #1 pick we draft Cunningham and don't look back. If it's 2-4 we take the BPA and hope he becomes more Joel Embiid than Jabari Parker. We'll most likely be bad again next season (whether we pick 1-4 or surrender the pick to OKC) and will have another high draft pick. Having Wall on the team is not going to hurt the rockets (unless it's #3 above) because that expiring contract creates a $47 million hole/space that we can use to acquire more picks/assets if we want to rent out that space to capped-out teams while we're still rebuilding.

 

You say this as if it isn't commonly what happens nearly every time in this exact scenario. Like every time the player becomes a cancer and the times someone is professional about it are the exceptions. When guys want off the team they do all they can in their power to do so, Wall will be no different and given his history and the issues he's had with teammates, it should pretty much be expected that he's going to be a cancer in the lockerroom so that he gets off the team.

 

You bring up Blake Griffin when again, they sat him for a few weeks. Again, the situation we're arguing is unprecedented where we would be sitting a player for more than a year. It's not going to happen and again there are reasons it simply doesn't happen in sports. It's an agreement that if you don't have a use for a player you let them go so that they can pursue opportunities elsewhere, not just hang on to them to teach them a lesson.

First rounders are not created equally, teams give them away all the time. A late first rounder does not have this tremendous value, in fact, whenever we acquire one people roll their eyes here and basically go 'whatever' and people only act like they are gold when it comes to giving them up for any reason. The first rounders we have that are bonus assets are exactly that and Stone already talk about them as such...but people act like BKNs 2026 pick is the next lebron when it could just be some random dude drafted 25th.

Teams should operate in the now, if you draft Cade he is your franchise player now and you do all you can to make sure your franchise player is comfortable on your team.

 

If we depart from Wall I would no longer be a rocket.

 

Neither Wall or NBAPA would have a leg to stand off. If Wall refuses to accept a role befitting of his current abilities, then the Rockets can totally either fine him or mutually agree to have him stay home while they "look" for a trade partner that makes sense for them.

 

Really? Why?

 

Legally of course, but no one is going to be fine with sitting a player out for a long duration of time. Again, there are reasons this simply does not happen. People always say teams can just do this and treat players this way and they never actually do it.

Again, we're not talking about for a few weeks or a month, we're talking about for the duration of his contract. If Wall comes in here november and the Rockets realize he's hurting the team the idea that the Rockets can just fine him or make him stay at home with no set date to end it...this just does not happen. Now if instead the Rockets tell him that they are working on a trade or will mutually part with him, then yes, this is what usually happens...but like this idea of holding him hostage basically until he breaks isn't going to sit right with his agent or anyone really.

I'm just thinking across sports this kind of thing doesn't happen. Of course in the NFL there is no guaranteed money so owners are more than cool to cut players that become issues. In the MLB we had Pujols get told he'd have to accept a lesser role and what did the Angels do? Allowed him to go and play elsewhere. We're not holding him out until he breaks.

While Wall is no Harden he's definitely someone that can still play and start elsewhere. It would be different if he were a scrub called up from the g-league that would be lucky to be on a team sure...

 

Guys wanting off a team is not uncommon I'll give you that. Guys being petulant and cancerous figures on a team to get off the team happens, I'll give you that too (of course, that's why I bothered to list that as a possible scenario....?) But Wall is in a situation where:

1. He's missed significant time over the past 3 seasons (and counting) due to injuries.
2. He's on a team that really don't need him
3. He's on a team that is should be smart/shrewd enough to not just trade him to get rid of him due to having to add assets to the trade to make someone take him off their hands
4. His salary really shrinks down the possible lists of teams that could absorb his salary as well as want him
5. He's got next year and 2022-2023 to get paid. If he underperforms or does anything to tank his value then he's pretty much either destined for overseas work or vet minimum contracts

So the ball is really in his court on what he wants his career trajectory to go. In terms of usefulness on this team Wall can still go out and statpad every night if he wants because all that will do is help the Rockets' chances to get a higher pick next summer which is fine by me. Make those numbers look good, get a desperate team like the Knicks or Pistons to bite because they want to make the playoffs and say "We made the playoffs! We're a success!" to their fans.

Bottom line is I'm not going to trade Wall if it means attaching any meaningful asset to him (assuming whatever I get in return is crap) just to get rid of his contract. Hell, what we should wish/pray for is for Wall to explode and perform really well so he declines his player option and test free agency for one last pay day. We would be free of him and his onerous contract a year earlier and we now have capspace to build the team.

 

Well I agree that the most likely scenario is the Rockets will/have been trying to trade him and they'll likely tell him as kindly as possible that because of his contract they just can't find a trade...so we'll start the season with him...he's going to start...all these people that think we're going to bench him, no...he has to play to have any value and he has to play a lot and hopefully he plays well enough to be an attraction for the trade deadline...if he doesn't, well, then that's when the Rockets are going to hopefully make a decision to release/buy him out and move on from him.

I just don't see a situation where we are just sitting him for a long period of time, further tanking his value, I don't think we bench him for that reason alone. We would bench him though if say we knew there were 2-3 teams interested in him...then PLEASE bench him. Hopefully they learned that lesson from the Ego situation where it sounded like teams were interested in him and here we are playing him and he gets hurt...

I think even Wall at his best will hurt the young development of this team for however long he is here. He's going to compete and he's going to just quite plainly take minutes away from KPJ or Cade (should we be fortunate to have the chance to get him) and that is a huge no-no for me...but if Silas is smart I think should we draft Cade I'd roll out Cade, KPJ, Wall, Tate, Wood as a starting five and see how that goes. Those are all some long guards and if they play off each other might work out well.

 

If KPJ and/or Cade are going to be the franchise altering players we hope they would be for the team I don't think having Wall on the team for, at most, 2 seasons will hurt their development. Hell, Steph was playing behind and along side Monta Ellis for a couple of seasons and that didn't really hindered Curry's career. Of course that's just one example but there are more examples throughout NBA history where a great player (franchise player) will find a way to break through, regardless of the malcontents on the team.

 

I totally agree. While I am very concerned about the fit with Wall and younger guys the Rockets are going to try to put out front, I dont think that he is THAT far away from being a positive asset. I suspect that he will be close to his career averages next season on, hopefully, a less dysfunctional team. Combine that with a contract that will "only" extend one extra season and I could see Wall having suitors from playoff teams with a need at guard (looking square at you NYK & LAC...).

 

Really?

John Wall is your Maginot Line?

I've really seen it all now on CF.

 

Calling it a "poor" idea is being kind.
"Idiotic" would be far more accurate.

 

Maybe, everyone is different though and I have no idea how the dynamic might play out. I admit that. Maybe Wall will meet Cade and love him.

I do think that we can also play KPJ/Wall/Cade at the same time and that it might work out very well, so who knows at this point.

Monta though was a model vet. Curry loved him and Curry even went to him for advice after Monta was traded. Monta while on the team told him too (according to Steph at least) that the Warriors was his team...I just don't imagine Wall telling Cade that lol. This is just based off what we know of Wall and his interactions with teammates, it doesn't seem to be positive.

 

I haven't heard a soul within the Rockets org speak negatively about John Wall. The players on the team clearly love him, too.

 

Players while playing together will hardly ever be honest about each other to the public as for the organization, of course they are going to say that. They are trying to trade him.

 

Stone is going to do whatever daddy Tillman says

 

I think it's clear paying someone to take Wall of your hands is the worst case scenario and would be a complete panic move. To me, if someone wants him for nothing, you give him to them but otherwise you just wait out that contract - its not really hurting us right now in terms of improving our roster because his cap hold is not preventing us from signing a top level FA because they wouldn't want to sign with a rebuilding team anyway.

Maybe his contract becomes useful again as a trade asset after next year when he is in the last year of his deal and if he pouts and is more trouble than he is worth, you pay him to go away or even better yet you negotiate a buyout so he can join some trash glamour team like the Lakers.

 

Literally you just wrote this: "This is just based off what we know of Wall and his interactions with teammates, it doesn't seem to be positive."

Jesus Christ guys...