The marriage between the Houston Rockets and 5x NBA All-Star point guard John Wall has seemed to only last one year as the team and Wall have agreed to work on finding a new home for the 31-year-old point guard, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic.
Making his return from multiple injuries, including a torn Achilles tendon, John Wall played reasonably well last season for the Rockets, averaging 20.6 points, 6.9 assists, and 1.1 steals in 40 total games, but his contract is not favorable whatsoever.
Wall is set to make $44.3M this season and then $47.4M during the 2022-23 season, assuming he opts into his player option next offseason. This season alone, John Wall has the second-highest cap hit league-wide, trailing just Stephen Curry ($45.8M).
Seeing as he is still looking to work his way back to full speed, Wall should not be getting paid like one of the best players in the league, hence why his trade interest is going to be very low.
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The Rockets will be actively looking to trade John Wall as he sits out games to begin the season, and there are no talks of a potential buyout at the moment, making the teams that can trade for the 5x All-Star very limited.
With the 76ers looking to move Ben Simmons ($33M) and the Cavaliers looking to move Kevin Love ($31.3M), maybe one of these two teams could look to acquire Wall, but the Oklahoma City Thunder are another team to keep an eye on.
Oklahoma City has a very small payroll so far for the upcoming season. It is roughly $20M below the salary cap floor for the 2021-22 season, which is why they could be interested in adding a contract like John Wall’s, that is, if there is something in it for them.
General manager Sam Presti has been the mastermind behind the Thunder acquiring an abundance of draft picks over the next several years, and if draft assets are being involved in acquiring Wall, the Thunder could be very interested in taking the former All-Star off the Rockets’ hands.
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After all, they have been known to bring in veteran guards over the years like Chris Paul and Dennis Schroder to help mentor some of their young players.
Both cap-wise and mentorship-wise, bringing in John Wall may not be that terrible of an idea for the Oklahoma City Thunder, but given how much Wall is owed, what would this trade wind up looking like?
