John Wall to the Clippers finally closes the loop on their extended point guard search

In trading Patrick Beverley and Rajon Rondo to the Memphis Grizzlies for Eric Bledsoe, the LA Clippers consolidated the point guard position while simultaneously severing the last connection to Chris Paul’s six-year tenure in LA. Then, they decided to start Bledsoe at shooting guard next to point guard Reggie Jackson, going without a traditional backup after rookie Jason Preston had season-ending foot surgery.

So when the Clippers traded Bledsoe to Portland in February to acquire wings Norman Powell and Robert Covington, the expectation was that the Clippers would seek another point guard in the buyout market. That never materialized to the Clippers’ liking.

Until now.

Five-time All-Star point guard John Wall has agreed to sign with the LA Clippers on a two-year, $13.2 million deal for their taxpayer midlevel exception. Wall, who did not play last year due to Houston’s quest to develop young guards Jalen Green and Kevin Porter Jr., agreed to give back $6.5 million in a contract buyout arrangement – roughly the same yearly salary he will now receive with the Clippers.

John Wall agrees to a 2-year $13.2 million contract with the Los Angeles Clippers! @JohnWall pic.twitter.com/sJXkyGOD7v

— Klutch Sports Group (@KlutchSports) July 1, 2022

The Clippers are set to retain 13 of the 15 players who ended last season on a standard contract. Center Isaiah Hartenstein will join the New York Knicks, leaving the Clippers without a traditional backup center. Wall now takes the 14th standard contract, replacing unrestricted free agent small forward Rodney Hood, who the Clippers acquired at the trade deadline, but likely would have let go had a point guard of Wall’s caliber hit the market in February.

Wall’s taken a winding path to get to the Clippers, but he’s here now. He becomes one of nine players who could be free agents in 2024, a list that includes Kawhi Leonard and Wall’s 2010 draft classmate Paul George if they decline player options. The two-year window for the Clippers has been established.

How Wall fits

Wall, the top pick of the 2010 NBA Draft out of Kentucky, peaked with the Washington Wizards in the 2016-17 season, earning his lone All-NBA selection (third team) while averaging career-highs in points (23.1, with 6.8 free-throw attempts per game), assists (10.7) and steals (2.0). The Wizards lost Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals on the road against the Boston Celtics that season, but the game before saw Wall hit a game-winning 3 to extend the series.

That season capped a four-year run where Wall accounted for more than 40 percent of Washington’s overall field goals each season from 2013-14 to 2016-17. But he’s been limited to only 113 games total over the past five years, and he hasn’t played in the postseason since 2018. Wall’s final All-Star season was in 2017-18, when left knee surgery kept him out for 41 games. In December 2018, Wall underwent surgery to repair a Haglund’s deformity and avoid tearing his Achilles’ tendon, only to do just that after slipping and falling at his home. He never played for the Wizards again, and Washington traded him to the Houston Rockets in 2020 for Russell Westbrook in a swap of similar contracts.

Wall’s comeback season in Houston was supposed to be with James Harden and a new head coach in Stephen Silas. But Wall only played in six games with Harden before Houston traded its superstar to the Brooklyn Nets. Wall went in and out of the lineup with left knee and left Achilles’ issues, and he missed the last 12 games of the 2020-21 season due to a right hamstring strain. Then, of course, he didn’t play at all last year.

Obviously, Wall is not the same player that he was at his peak in Washington. We’re talking five years and tons of injuries ago. He turns 32 years old in September, so the Clippers are likely getting a different player than the 2020-21 Rockets version of Wall, too. But Wall is healthy after working out over the past year, and it will be interesting to see if he has retained any of the on-ball juice he’s displayed throughout his career.

There were good and bad moments for Wall in 2020-21 while playing for the worst team in the NBA. Offensively, Wall’s field-goal percentage dropped to a career-low 40.4 percent, while his assists fell to a career-low 6.9 per game, with a career-low 1.95 assist-turnover ratio. Wall also made only 31.7 percent of his 3s in 2020-21, and is only a career 32.3 percent shooter from distance, topping out at 37.1 percent in 2017-18.

Wall also had career-lows in rebounds (3.2) and steals (1.1) in 2020-21 despite playing 32.2 minutes per game. Wall’s turnovers were most pronounced in pick-and-roll and transition situations, while his midrange game (31.7 percent field goals) and finishing (55.4 percent field goals in restricted area) left a lot to be desired. Wall rarely screens and rarely cuts, parts of his game that will have to evolve while in Tyronn Lue’s offense.

But Wall can still get to the free-throw line at a high rate, something the Clippers missed from any of their players last season. Wall averaged 20.6 points per game in 2020-21 and averaged 5.3 free-throw attempts per game. As a career 77.9 percent free-throw shooter who made 74.9 percent in 2020-21, Wall’s shot isn’t broken. And even though Wall had a career-low 10 dunks in 2020-21, he still has enough lift at 6-foot-3 and 210 pounds.

Wall was more effective defensively with the Rockets than he was in his latter days in D.C. He guards pick-and-roll ballhandlers well, bothers shooters with his length, and can slide his feet on an island. He’s a former All-Defensive team selection (second team in 2015), and he found a way to block 31 shots in 40 games in 2020-21. Wall also averaged a career-low 1.2 personal fouls per game in 2020-21, which should fit right in with a Clippers team that defended well without fouling.

2022-23 Impact

The big question with Wall, besides his readiness to play after missing two of the past three full seasons, is the domino effect on the depth chart. The addition of Wall to the Clippers is going to have an impact on so many players on the roster. Right now, I’m putting Wall as a starter at point guard; the last time Wall came off the bench in the NBA was in January of 2013. That’s when Wall missed the first 33 games of the season, then played his first seven games as A.J. Price’s backup.

Jackson, who is entering a contract year, started all 75 games for the Clippers last year and was at the top of the scouting report for most of January, February and March. In 2020-21, Jackson started 43 of 67 regular season games and 17 of 19 postseason games. But Jackson began the 2020-21 season as a backup, and Patrick Beverley was the primary starter whenever he was healthy until Game 3 of their first-round playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks, when Lue went with Jackson and pushed Beverley to the edge of the rotation. When Jackson was bought out in Detroit and arrived to the Clippers in February 2020, he was a backup.

Even last season, when it made more sense to have Bledsoe be a reserve, Lue had Bledsoe start with Jackson for the first 22 games. Bledsoe had only come off the bench four times in his eight seasons between Clippers stints, and Lue respected that enough to start him. He may do the same with Wall, who, like Jackson has a positive connection with George.

Wall starting will provide him the kind of spacing that maximizes his ability to get downhill in the half court. The Clippers will hope that Wall can get his transition offense back as well. (It would also potentially allow one quirk of Leonard’s two championships to persist. Next season will be Wall ‘s 13th since being drafted. Leonard won his first title with the Spurs in Tony Parker’s 13th season, then his second with the Raptors in Kyle Lowry’s 13th season).

If Wall shifts to the second unit, he could lead a group that will definitely include Powell and Covington and could feature combinations involving Terance Mann, Luke Kennard, Nicolas Batum and/or Amir Coffey. At the very least, the Clippers have bolstered their already exceptional depth with an experienced ballhandler, whether it’s Wall or Jackson who comes off the bench. At most, the Clippers have added a playmaking threat to go with George and Leonard. This should be the best team Wall has been a part of in his career.

What’s next for the Clippers?

Summer league begins next week, and the Clippers have one open roster spot. Because of the trade that sent Beverley, Rondo and Daniel Oturu out last August, the Clippers have an $8.3 million trade exception that expires shortly after the end of summer league this year. The Clippers have long said they are content with not using it.

But the Clippers do a need for another traditional center, and they have a wing surplus that puts multiple players who could be in rotations elsewhere below the second unit on the depth chart. There’s a chance that the Clippers wait until closer to training camp to have this year’s version of a center battle for the final roster spot. With Wall in tow, the Clippers have done the majority of their offseason work before Independence Day.

(Top photo of Paul George and John Wall: Carmen Mandato / POOL PHOTOS-USA TODAY)