this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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John Wall was paid 44m to not play for the Rockets
Ye that is the one. Kobe was a clear net negative, but on a tanking team it doesnt matter that much. But his "farewell tour" made Lakers watchable and boosted ticket sales and merch sales.
Wall was tied #2 highest salary (Steph 1, Harden had same salary as JW) and he made Rockets not clearly worse, but did not boost sales whatsoever. so he was stuck cos he was one of most negative assets in the league (he still had PO year left at this point, which he obviously took) and was untradable and useless for tanking team so he sat.
Case closed. Why didn’t they play him?
To get Jabari smith…
Tanking
Reps for younger guys
He had no place in the Rockets' future, so it makes sense that Wall would shit on the team after leaving. He was a "has-been" who was trying to salvage a last bit of his credibility of a player by trashing the organization.
He wanted to play and help and they told him to fuck off.
Crazy he said fuck you to them lmao
He also could have just read the room lol
If he didn't play he did what the Rockets wanted, technically making it a good performance from their perspective.
They did all of that losing without him, who was the highest paid player who contributed to a lot of losing?
Counterpoint that Kobe's season mentioned by OP is worse:
Kobe sold tickets, though