The New BIG Three!?
Photo Credit: Fadeaway World
With the NBA season coming to an end, teams have wasted no time making moves to prepare themselves for next year’s shot at winning a championship. A noticeably interesting move is the buyout agreement between the Houston Rockets and John Wall.
On June 27, the Houston Rockets and John Wall agreed to a $6.5 million buyout, according to Adrian Wojnarowski and Tim MacMahon of ESPN. Now, what is a buyout? Brendan Heffernan states, "A buyout involves a player and team that want to part ways, leading to the player surrendering a specific sum of their contract in the process. The sum of money is usually not for the full amount that their contract is worth and is usually agreed upon between team and player in order for them to seek other teams. If a team buys a player’s contract out, they are not allowed to pick them up for one year.”
NBA.com stated that Wall agreed to take only $41 million of the remaining $47.4 million on his contract so that he could become a free agent. That's not bad for only playing 40 games with the Houston Rockets, in which he averaged 20.6 points and 6.9 assists per game. The five-time All-Star missed the entire 2019-20 season while recovering from a ruptured Achilles tendon and a leg infection. In a report by David Aldridge and Kelly Iko of The Athletic, it was mentioned in their article that he missed out on this season because the Rockets were trying to rebuild around their young players. After clearing waivers, Wall signed a two-year deal worth $13.2 million with the Clippers after being bought out by Houston.
With his playmaking ability and freakish speed, Wall will be a welcome addition to the Los Angeles Clippers. In addition, Los Angeles is anticipating the return of their star player Kawhi Leonard, who missed the entire season last year due to an ACL injury. I believe that the addition of Wall will also create more open shots for Paul George because he won't have to rely so heavily on his ball-handling skills to create his own shot. I'm also very interested to see where Reggie Jackson fits into this mix because he was their starting point guard last season and averaged 16.8 points and 4.8 assists per game last season. So while the Clippers are hoping to get the Wall that we know can take over games like he did when he played for the Wizards, Jackson has proven himself to be the starting point guard for that team.
I don't know for sure that the addition of Wall makes the Clippers a championship contender, but one thing we know for sure is that the Western Conference just got a whole lot more competitive.