On January 25, Beijing time, the 2021-22 NBA regular season is in full swing. In recent times, there has been more and more news about Lakers star Westbrook and Rockets star Wall swapping. Rockets reporter Kelly Iko confirmed the rumor in a post today, saying that the Lakers must pay some chips if they want to reach a deal, such as the first round pick in 2027 or pulling in a third party.
Marc Stein then reported more about the deal, saying that the Rockets are the only team in the league that is likely to accept Westbrook through a trade, but the Rockets are not interested in Westbrook playing for themselves again, they just want to get back some future assets and get rid of Wall. But if the deal is made, the Rockets are expected to reach a buyout with Westbrook soon. Westbrook currently has 2 years left on his contract and is paid $44211146 this season and $47063478 for the 2022-23 season (player option).
For this deal rumor, another Kevin O'Connor gave confirmation, saying that the Rockets may indeed use Wall to trade Westbrook, but given that Wall has played too few battles in recent years, the Lakers' move will be very risky.
According to Wall's side, he is not with the team at the moment, but trained in Miami himself, but he has been in continuous and transparent communication with management. The Rockets wanted to find a reasonable solution for Wall. In addition to the Lakers, the Rockets have recently received a number of calls from teams about Potential Deals from Wall. However, due to the limitation of wall's contract amount, other teams can only continue to simply wait and see what happens.
So far this season, Westbrook has averaged 34.9 minutes per game, averaging 18.6 points, 8.1 rebounds, 7.8 assists and 1.1 steals, shooting 43.7% from the field and 29.6% from three-point range. In the 2019-20 season, Westbrook played for the Rockets for one season, but his pairing with Harden was not very good, the team was eliminated in the Western Conference semifinals, and then Westbrook was traded to the Wizards and joined the Lakers last summer.