NBA Notebook: Rockets find themselves between a Wall and a hard place

Welcome to another edition of NBA Notebook, where we get you caught up on the biggest stories from around the Association.

JOHN WALL AND ROCKETS SEEK TRADE

Shams Charania reported earlier this week that the Houston Rockets have agreed to find a new home for former All-Star point guard John Wall, and that he will not suit up for the Rockets this season. Wall played in 40 games last season, after missing the entirety of 2019-20 with an Achilles injury. He scored 20 points per game for the Rockets, and could potentially still help a competitive team.

Trading Wall sounds like pure fantasy though. He is still owed approximately $91 million over the next two seasons, an exorbitant amount for a player who, due to injury, may be only a marginal starter on a good team.

To find a trade partner, It would take a team with an enormous amount of superfluous salary that also has ambitions to win now, as well as thinking that Wall is still capable of contributing to winning playoff basketball. Suffice it to say, the number of teams that fit that bill are few and far between. The Rockets also have no incentive to trade picks to get off Wall, particularly since the two parties are in accord with him not playing for the team this season. While there is apparently no interest in a buyout, we’ll see if that changes when a trade fails to materialize by the deadline.

AARON GORDON EXTENDS WITH THE NUGGETS

Aaron Gordon has reportedly reached an extension agreement with the Denver Nuggets for four years and $92 million.

Gordon was acquired midseason from the Orlando Magic, finally adding the big wing defender that the Nuggets had been desperately missing. Before Jamal Murray’s untimely injury, the lineup featuring Jamal Murray, Will Barton, Michael Porter Jr., Nikola Jokic, and Aaron Gordon absolutely blew the doors off the competition, to the tune of a +16.8 net rating. Gordon had long been miscast as a self-creator and on-ball threat, but thrived instead as an agent of chaos getting open passes from Jokic.

And though Murray’s injury takes Denver out of the title race for the moment, that doesn’t mean they’re going to fall off in the regular season. Jokic is a unique cover that teams struggle to adapt to during the regular season, and the Nuggets still have the best home court advantage in the NBA. With a plethora of guards capable of doing a facsimile of Murray’s job (including rookie addition Nah'Shon "Bones" Hyland) the Nuggets should easily go Over their projection of 47.5 wins for the season.

FRANK NTILIKINA JOINS CADRE OF EX-KNICKS IN DALLAS

Marc Stein reported that free agent Frank Ntilikina, the former No. 8 pick of the New York Knicks, has signed with the Dallas Mavericks. Ntilikina joins Tim Hardaway Jr., Kristaps Porzingis, Reggie Bullock, and Trey Burke as former Knicks now rostered by the Mavs.

Ntilikina has been tied to Dallas in the past. Before the Mavericks zeroed in on Dennis Smith Jr. in the 2017 NBA Draft, all public indications were that they were high on the French point guard.

It never really worked out for Ntilikina on the Knicks. Phil Jackson drafted Ntilikina and was fired before he even played in his first training camp. There was never faith or a consistent development plan. Ntilikina still has serious defensive talent, and is a good, low-risk bet for Dallas.

HALL OF FAME FINALLY INDUCTS WEBBER

The Basketball Hall of Fame welcomed a class headlined by Chris Webber, Chris Bosh, Paul Pierce, and Ben Wallace this week. However, it was former Chicago Bull Toni Kukoc that had the best line of the night.

There are a lot of issues with the Hall of Fame, including its anonymous selection committee and inscrutable criteria, but with the addition of Webber at long last one of its great wrongs has been righted. If a Hall of Fame should exist to do anything, it must be able to tell the story of basketball by its inductees, and that story could not be properly told without Webber’s contributions.