Same here, I'd actually be mad if the Rockets land a top 4 pick and they DON'T find a way to dump Wall. He'd be getting in the way of the team's development
I can understand that, but John Wall's contract is a big ball of chain around this roster. Maybe he is a great off court guy with the young guys, but on the court he is playing like he wants off the team. I just feel like moving on from Wall is prudent at the right price. I wouldn't want to give up too much to move him, but I'd be asking around. He has 1 year + player option remaining, maybe we wouldn't have to give up frp at next trade deadline.
COD Bomb. Wow. Yeah, KPJ can't fully grow until Wall is moved. KPJ NEEDS the reps of running the offense himself. BUT, to move Wall, you likely have to attach draft picks. That is a BIG contract.
Maybe. It will cost more to trade Wall for expirings but less to take back overpaid but useful players. Lots of permutations to a Wall trade and we are now flush with a variety of picks and in a team building stage where we can take back some lesser, bad contracts.
Are there even anymore Blake type contracts out there? If not, would need team with multiple players needing to be dumped. EDIT: Other than Wall and Westbrook I mean.
Interesting what he said about Silas. I think it's reasonable to suggest Silas is more about just trying to win (as funny as it sounds) than player development. Not really sure what the answer is there, maybe better assistant coaches. Firing Silas after the first season would be a non starter.
Kemba Walker. Same length as Wall's but about $10 less per year plus player option ($35 / $36 / $37 player option).
Forcing a John Wall trade with picks is a mistake. 2 lessons Rockets org/fans should know is 1) 40 million dollar contracts are entirely tradeable and 2) kicking the can down the road on "negative asset" 40 million dollar players crushes any legitimate thoughts of rebuilding. Literally just delays it another year at best. I don't know how anyone could justify using these picks just to unload Wall. That is a death sentence to Rockets basketball being relevant on any kind of reasonable timeline. My best case scenario right now is landing #1/Cunningham, using the later picks to continue building this young core, using the 1st part of the 21-22 season to continue rehabbing Wall's value/paying down his contract. At that point you'll have Wall with only a 1.5yr left on his contract, with 1.5 year of solid ball (numbers wise, we know this is a tank) after his injury. 31 years old I believe? Someone will bite. The return won't be great but it won't have cost the future either. Then you unleash Porter, Cunningham, Tate, Wood, Martin, hopefully Brown, Nwaba and whoever else they can draft, spend reasonable dollars on. AND E_GOD. Don't forget him. Just make the 8th seed, give that young core a glimpse of what it could be. Projecting into the '22 offseason just have a decent offseason you know? Build the core some more or land a big fish with some assets. Then you make the real run in '23. It's blurry but it's there and none of it is impossible or unreasonable. Just need a few guys to believe in the growth for a year or two. Also maybe the owner could not cheap out when it comes time to pay this young core for developing into a good team (which is what they do in this hypothetical best case scenario.)
Wall is exercising his player option. He is going to make $92,000,000 over the two seasons after this one. No one is going to touch that without substantial draft pick compensation.
Another point lost in the "Well we've managed to trade bad contracts before we can do it again" argument is that there were only a limited number of bad contracts--CP3, Russ, Wall--in existence and we pretty much went through all of them. There's no contract out there that is as toxic and is as expensive as Wall's anymore for the Rockets to acquire. The only albatross contract I can think of is Kevin Love's but even Cleveland would be stupid to take on Wall and let him hinder Garland and Sexton's growth in the backcourt. Would I attach a 1st to get rid of Wall? I think I would DEPENDING on what contracts/players we get in return because the reality is that we're going to have to take crap back too. I doubt any team with cap room is willing to absorb Wall's contract to get a middle of the road 1st.
Agree on recycling contracts part. I am sure that the Rockets would like to move on from Wall but taking back 3-4 contracts to meet his salary causes problems too as those are roster spots that would be taken up. If the Rockets would just release those players, then they should just attempt a buyout with Wall. However If I am Wall, I am not giving up very much money for a buyout. The Rockets may ultimately need to buy him out, but Tilman won't want to do that and the Rockets won't want to lose face either.
What if we got Siakim or Middleton as part of a Wall+Picks deal? Excluding the top 1-4 pick of course.
I think it's something Silver and the NBA needs to revisit for the next CBA in regards to buyouts and the cap hit the team will still have. Like it makes zero sense to hold it against a team/owner if the player agrees to a buy out to leave the team by having his cap number still count against the salary cap. Like I can understand having it count for the season where the player agreed on the buyout but the subsequent years should not count at all.
It would depend on the particulars. I will just sat that the cost to get one of those players AND have a team take on Wall's contract would likely be extremely high.
I would do it if I can move Siakam or Middleton to another team to get back a trade exception / cap space. Like, say, New York receives Siakam Toronto receives Wall, 2 future 1sts Houston receives whatever expiring contract(s) and/or picks or even a huge TPE I want a completely clean slate from a salary perspective if we were to move Wall with picks. Siakam and Middleton are nice but they wouldn't fit into a timeline of our rebuild, imo.
I think he most likely will exercise his player option, but a $47 million expiring contract could be valuable to a team and it could be valuable to us. All it takes is one team. It's certainly not out of the realm of impossibility that Wall opts out of his player option to sign a longer term deal with a team he prefers but I wouldn't bet on it.
