Certainly, you could understand if John Wall was upset by his current situation. He’s locked into a deal where he’s making significantly less than players who signed free agent deals this summer, and he isn’t getting the supplementary income from a big shoe deal at the moment.
Given that, you can understand why this report from Kevin O’Connor of The Ringer is a bit alarming:
Wall has previously expressed displeasure over the fact that Reggie Jackson received a similar deal. Then, last August, James Harden signed an incentive-laden 13-year, $200 million shoe deal with Adidas, while the company offered Wall a deal worth only $7.5 million annually. According to The Vertical, Wall declined the offer because he wanted “Harden money.” A few months later, Wall fired his agent, Dan Fegan, and hired Rich Paul. Maybe Adidas is second-guessing their decision after seeing Harden’s shoe design, but in any case, that’s not the only time Wall has been irked by The Beard. A front-office executive tells The Ringer that Wall was “rankled” after Harden signed a four-year, $118 million extension with the Rockets.
If Harden’s contract was irritating, just imagine how Wall felt when Beal signed for a five-year max contract worth $127.2 million, tied for the fourth-most-valuable contract in the NBA. An agent described it to me like this: “Whatever is public, multiply it by five and that’s how they really feel about each other. It’s probably a total disaster.”
After that report came out (and other sites started picking up the story), Wall hopped on Twitter to dismiss the report. He later deleted the tweets, but here’s a screencap to give you an idea of how he felt about things:
John Wall part 1 pic.twitter.com/u0rp1ao6Oj
— Danny (@recordsANDradio) August 26, 2016
John Wall part 2 pic.twitter.com/Lz2TR54qRW
— Danny (@recordsANDradio) August 26, 2016
John Wall part 3 pic.twitter.com/JGMAu5pcf6
— Danny (@recordsANDradio) August 26, 2016
It’s good to see Wall is in good spirits and didn’t want to waste any time shooting down something that he felt mischaracterized him. Let’s just hope the good vibes carry into next season and beyond.