Rockets coach Stephen Silas confirms meeting with John Wall, lays out next steps
After Sunday’s meeting between Houston Rockets head coach Stephen Silas, general manager Rafael Stone, and veteran John Wall, anonymously sourced news reports expressed pessimism regarding whether a mutual agreement could be reached to resolve his stand-off with the team.
While the five-time All-Star clearly wants to resume playing, the potential on-court role appears to be a sticking point, with the team wanting Wall to take on a more limited backup role behind Kevin Porter Jr. at point guard. But in comments before Monday’s home game versus Oklahoma City — the first media availability since those reports — Silas took a decidedly more optimistic tone regarding the outlook with Wall.
Among the coach’s comments:
Rafael and I did meet with John, and he had indicated that he wants to play and work towards that. So right now, we’re in that phase as far as getting him back in game shape. He’s been doing a lot of one-on-oh type stuff and one-on-one type stuff but nothing up and down, nothing four-on-four, five-on-five. Right now is the ramp-up time. That’ll probably take a couple weeks. We’ll continue our conversations and try to determine what it looks like. …
Yesterday was discussion No. 1. That was very much centered around him getting to a place he can play in an NBA game. He’s in great shape. He is diligent as far as his work. He’s been positive and all that stuff. But as far as getting in game shape, our guys have had training camp and they’ve been practicing and they had games. He hasn’t had any of that. Right now, it’s about getting him to that point.
Regarding Wall’s potential role with the Rockets, Silas said:
It has to be good for everybody. It has to be good for him. It has to be good for our organization. It has to be good for our group. There’s more to it than just one conversation and getting ready to play, and now you play.
There’s, ‘What does the role look like? What does it look like for the group? What does it look like for everybody?’ We’re at stage one.
In short, check back in approximately two weeks. Monday’s complete media availability session with the head coach can be viewed below.
“After two weeks, I’m going to really have to get with Rafael, get with John, and really figure out what this looks like,” Silas concluded.
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