Lakers rumors: 3 buyout players LeBron needs to convince to sign in L.A.
By Ian Levy
2. John Wall
The Clippers’ John Wall reclamation project has mostly been a disappointment. He had some flashes early in the season and he’s averaging 11.4 points and 5.2 assists per game off the bench. But he’s also been a fairly big negative at the defensive end and he’s barely topping 40 percent from the field and 30 percent from beyond the arc. Looking at all that together may be a bit too reminiscent of Russell Westbrook but there’s reason to think he can give the Lakers more.
Because the Clippers have struggled so much to stay healthy, Wall has played just 61 minutes all season with both Paul George and Kawhi Leonard. His numbers have been heavily dragged down by the fact that he’s playing a lot of minutes with the bottom half of the Clippers’ rotation and probably carrying a much larger offensive load than he’s suited to at this point.
He’s actually made 35.3 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3s and his true shooting percentage is a somewhat respectable 54.5 when he’s playing with at least one of Leonard or George. Slot Wall into a backup point guard role behind Russell. Let him play a lot of minutes overlapping with LeBron James and Anthony Davis and Wall could be much more productive than he has been for the Clippers thus far.