ShamesBomb: John Wall on his way to leave…?!

Don't worry too much about Wall - he'll find a way to keep himself busy.

 

I think we end with Kennard and Morris if there is a trade. If not an off-season trade for expirings. We will get nothing of value and give up nothing of value for Wall, regardless of when it happens.

 

Based on one single tweet I can tell Ryan Sack knows nothing about professional basketball.

 

"44 mil for a back up PG is insane"

Not if it wins you a title.

The question is, which contender could trade for Wall without having to give up players that made them contenders in the first place?

 

That's the problem though; no matter what kind of impact Wall could have...even if it's on Chris-Paul-as-a-Sun levels...whoever is trading for him will have to gut their roster just to make the salaries work. Either they're going to have to send out most of their bench or sacrifice one or two of their existing starters. Are those moves worth it?

Let's use the Clippers hypothetical: they send us Morris, Ibaka, and Kennard. Ibaka is inconsequential due to his back injury so he wasn't going to produce much for either team. Kennard played admirably during the regular season but was so inconsistent in the playoffs that they sat him for long periods of time. So maybe Wall can fill that void and them some. Now you have Morris, the Clippers' super sub and was one of a few players on that roster that came to play during the playoffs. He's durable, he can knock down threes and is their resident enforcer. Would this trade be worth it for the Clippers if it means taking away one of their best front court players?

Now if it's a Bledsoe, Kennard, and Ibaka...that might change things but how much more of an upgrade is Wall, at $44 million, over a combination of Bledsoe and Kennard, especially when John is coming off of an Achilles injury and Bledsoe has been fairly durable since coming off his ACL injury years ago?

 

So here's a spin-off on the Clips trade that adds the Mavs to it...

- Rockets send out Wall and 2024 2nd rd pick to Clips
- Rockets receive Porzingis from Mavs and Kennard from Clips
* Although we get back to longer contracts, they've for younger players that could either be part of rebuild or rehabbed and traded; obvious risk is Kristaps' injury history, but he's still young and talented. Both are great 3pt shooters and we can never have enough of those. Defense likely takes a hit depending on KP's return to form/mobility.

- Clips get another scoring threat/playmaker who's still decent defensively. With Reggie Jackson they'll have a solid rotation at the 1. They get rid of Bledsoe's contract and p/u a future #2. Losing Morris may hurt a bit, but they jettison his and Kennard's longer-term contracts.

- Mavs p/u a solid PF scorer and decent backup PG. They may want a pick for KP, but in the end decide the experiment is over and move his salary for 2 serviceable players/contracts.

Not a slam dunk for any of the teams, but trying to find a way to move JW and get something we can salvage in return.

 

I like I like... because this is the kind of win-now deal Dallas would probably make. That being said, I don't know how much eager the Clippers and the Mavericks would be to do this kind of deal without fearing that they might have helped a rival be better. Otherwise I like this quite a bit.

 

Gordon “opens up?” He basically used a lot of words to say “no comment.”

 

Yeah, he stopped short of saying he wasn't having much fun.

 

Given our trajectory for draft picks the Summer of 2023 looks to be one where the Rockets have a great shot at having at least one if not 2 young stars in the making, and can have like something around 60 million in cap space to get another two studs.

If I was Stone I would actually try to get maybe even more short term salary on the books this year, and next in a Wall trade... AND get at least one good pick out of the trade for 2023 as insurance in case we are still needing to bring in more talent via the draft, and there's no way to lure in free agents that Summer.

But all indications are the Summer of 2023 being a big moment for the franchise, and likely speaks to the Clippers being the key target here, and Stone signaling that they need to find a third team for Morris/Kennard to get a deal done.

 

Kelly Iko is a master of writing fluff pieces

 

That's why you involve a 3rd team and Danuel house so the clippers can replace depth with cheaper contracts...

 

There is no deal in which the rockets take contracts back beyond 2 seasons. We have a rare opportunity to add max free agents before our young players are due extensions.

Delaying cap space by a year delays it for good because you'll be resigning or extending guys prior to that.

Only way you take longer money back is if it's for a star you would otherwise use the cap space on and Wall's deal is cap filler...

 

Can you give me an example where the Clippers can obtain John Wall and also replenish their roster with not only cheaper contacts but also decent players that makes trading for Wall beneficial to the Clippers in the first place? Because just to even get Wall on the Clippers rosters requires removing three players already so now adding "cheaper contracts" would require more players to be moved off of the Clippers roster...unless there's some salary cap magic I'm not aware of.

 

This is incredibly important on any Wall discussions... they cannot take any contracts back longer than 2 years.

In the summer 2023 offseason...

Unrestricted Free Agent
Christian Wood

Restricted Free Agent:
Kevin Porter jr
Jae'Sean Tate

Those 3 cap holds are about 33 million. I would expect Wood and Porter alone would sign for 55 million at least so you are losing 20 million in possible cap space there.

Martin is eligible for an extension the year after that...

If they renounced Wall, Augustin, and Gordon cap holds; they would have roughly 42 million in cap space and then could resign their guys to whatever they want. This assumes no increase in cap.

Adding a Kennard or Morris whipes out enough cap space they can't max out a free agent.

 

Sure...

This works...

To Rockets:
Goran Dragic
Eric Bledsoe
Chris Boucher

To Raptors:
Marcus Morris
Luke Kennard

To Clippers:
John Wall
Danuel House
Precious Achiuwa
Khyri Thomas


Would depend on how Toronto evaluates morris/kennard as to whether realistic...