Wizards Rashomon: A John Wall Trade Rumor

It started as things do these days: some anonymous guy on Twitter posting something he said was absolutely, positively true. He said the Lakers were offering Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to the Wizards for John Wall. It seemed hard to believe, but it was just plausible enough for me to start asking friends around the league.

What I heard back was a kind of NBA Rashomon, where details varied depending on who was telling the story. The picture that emerged, even with the variations, suggests that Wall and the Wizards are open to change and that his representatives are exploring at least one option. Whether a deal materializes, and whether there’s a trade market for Wall beyond the Lakers remains to be seen.

Source No. 1, a current NBA agent, surprised me by saying the story was true. The source said it’s something Rich Paul — agent to LeBron James and, as of January 2016, John Wall — was orchestrating. But, according to this source, the Wizards were saying no.

I was still dubious, so I checked with Source No. 2, another current NBA agent who’s at least as dialed in as Source No. 1. Source No. 2 said the rumor is true. This source said Ball and Caldwell-Pope were definitely in the deal, but that there was still discussion whether the third player would be Ingram, Josh Hart, or Kyle Kuzma. While the boundaries of the deal were defined, details still had to be finalized, and the whole thing could still fall apart.

This could have all been agent chatter, though. Agents are people (no really, it’s true), and people gossip. That two people have heard the same story doesn’t necessarily mean the story is true. It just means they both heard it.

So, I went outside the agent network, and asked Source No. 3: someone who works in an unrelated industry but has long-standing connections to Rich Paul and LeBron James. Source No. 3 said Paul was trying to get Wall traded to the Lakers and that the Wizards would do it if Paul could get Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka on board. But, Source No. 3 warned, it wouldn’t be easy, because the Lakers like their youngsters. Source No. 3 added the nugget that Paul was working on trades to put talent around James because of fears that younger free agents “don’t want to play with LeBron anymore.”

Does this mean Wall is on board with changing teams? This was a notion all three sources agreed on, albeit with differing details. Source No. 1 said definitively that Wall wants out of Washington. Source No. 2 said Wall is happy to stay with the Wizards, but is open to being traded and has empowered Paul to explore the possibilities. Source No. 3 said they didn’t know about Wall’s wishes, but that Paul wouldn’t be trying to make this happen without Wall’s approval. All three said they believed Wall would waive his trade kicker in a move to the Lakers. (Read this by Albert Nahmad for the best explanation I’ve seen of the complexities of Wall’s trade kicker, and why he’d probably waive it in any trade scenario.)

Since the deal is not possible until December 15 due to Caldwell-Pope’s inclusion, I did what any writer would do with so many unsettled details: I didn’t publish anything. But when reports surfaced about the Wizards’ contentious practice, complete with Wall cussing out head coach Scott Brooks, my Spidey Sense tingled. Becoming a pain in the butt is a time-honored tactic used by NBA players to force trades. Earlier this year, for example, Jimmy Butler eviscerated his Timberwolves teammates, which made his presence with the team untenable and landed him with the Sixers.

When those stories were published, I checked in with a source in the Wizards front office. This source — let’s call them Source No. 4 — said that while Rich Paul might be working on a Wall trade, “this deal” had not been proposed to the Wizards. It was unclear whether this means there’s been no discussion of any kind of Wall trade with the Lakers, or that the specific trade I described hadn’t been proposed. Source No. 4 also said that Wall apologized to Brooks and teammates for the outburst in practice (also reported by Candace Buckner of the Washington Post), and said he wants to be part of “making things right” with the Wizards. What Source No. 4 did not say is that the team is opposed to trading Wall. In fact, Source No. 4 said the team was willing to trade anyone on the roster if the right deal could be made.

Rich Paul and the Los Angeles Lakers did not respond to requests for comment.

To recap:

Three sources say that the agent who represents LeBron James and John Wall is working to get Wall traded to the Lakers.

One says the Wizards are saying no, another says the Lakers are saying no, and the other says they’re still negotiating.

One says Wall “wants out,” another says he’s ambivalent about leaving DC, and a third says Paul “must have” Wall’s approval to be working on this at all.

A fourth Wizards source says Wall wants to stay, and that while they’re open to trading anyone on the roster, this deal hasn’t been brought to them.

If this deal happens, it would extricate the Wizards from Wall’s massive contract extension while restocking the roster with promising youth. It would give them an opportunity to restructure around Bradley Beal, Otto Porter, and whichever young players they got back from the Lakers, and it would give them financial flexibility moving forward to add depth. In short, it would be a no-brainer for the Wizards.

It would also provide Wall a fresh start thousands of miles away, where everyone — including Wall — knows he’s not the best player on his team. It would give him an opportunity to share the burden, retool his game, and perhaps roll back the clock to his most productive days.

Acquiring Wall would give the Lakers an established veteran who carries the reputation of a being a star player, but, it would hollow out what’s left of their youth and eliminate them from being players for an elite free agent. They wouldn’t be devoid of resources. Even after making this trade, they could still have approximately $15.5 million in cap space, which might be enough to sign a couple decent players to fill out their lineup. But unless they have another trade up their sleeve, they’d likely have a team short of depth.

What’s actually true is impossible to say. There’s enough chatter about a Wall to the Lakers trade within the NBA that it’s plausible that Paul is working on a deal with Wall’s approval. But, there are enough conflicting details to suggest there’s still work to be done to make a trade happen.