play wall 48 minutes. position doesn't matter. he'll get injured after 3 games but at least he can lead in the locker room and bench.
Wall's value is at an all-time low, so unloading him now doesn't make sense. Rockets still have pick control for 2 more years, and most successful tanks need around 3 years anyways. The Rockets should keep Wall and let him play, and as a best case scenario he can increase his value so that he becomes a viable trade target for desperate teams at the trade deadline. It doesn't hurt to have veteran presence anyways since this team is incredibly young.
That would be my goal as well. Whether Wall gets 20 mins as a starter or back up, makes no nevermind to me. What is he going to do? Get mad and go home. Majority of fan base seems to be wanting to lose anyway. With Kemba going to Knicks and Bledsoe going to Clippers, all doors seem closed. Team would have to be amazingly desperate to make a Wall deal this season. Point guard position in the NBA is heavily saturated now. Contender would rather go cheaper and younger or cheaper and older with Augustin
Every time I see this thread pop up to the top of the GARM my heart skips a beat thinking there's a tweet about Wall being shipped out. It ruins my day every damn time when I see that's not the case.
In a really weird way, I actually think having his contract on the books is a good thing. I could see Tillman being the type of owner to jump the gun on a rebuild and overpay for role player vets way too early in the process in order to help ticket sales. The Wall contract prevents him from doing this in the near term and our cap sheet should be pretty clean 2 summers from now when it would be more realistic to start adding veteran pieces to our young core.
Ironically WB would have been better to keep given you could have traded him to LA. We have really made bad decisions when it comes to our pg. We traded Bev, Sweet Lou, MH and picks for a freaking useless John Wall
The Rockets can't do that. No free agent will ever sign with the Rockets again if they treat a star player like that. Wall doesn't fit in the Rockets long term plans, but you have to show respect for the guy. He still is a very good player. You can reduce his role but you can't make him totally miserable.
If he wants a buyout, it should be for this year only. He can choose not to pick up the option for next year if he wants to go that route.
The whole narrative about nobody will come depending on how you treat a veteran is total BS. Look at how all these so called superstars have been unceremoniously been unloaded. Houston has had no problem enticing players to one of the biggest cities in America that is home to more nba players than most cities outside of NY and LA. Winning and money are what matters to today’s stars. We don’t have the cache of LA and NY, but if we build a really good and deep team and offer max dollars to a superstar they will come. Money and winning is king.
When I first read that I thought you said play him 20 games until he's injured for the rest of the season. That seems like the most likely of outcomes which is why the John Wall question to me isn't such a huge concern. If he makes it past 20 games without injury then at the very least he's then potentially a much more tradeable player mid season.
