John Wall Cover Story, New Start With The LA Clippers

Photo Credit: Andreas Branch

JOHN WALL HAS GONE THROUGH HELL AND KEPT GOING – AND IS READY FOR WHATEVER THE FUTURE HOLDS AS HE MAKES A FRESH NEW START IN LA.

BY LAURA SCHREFFLER

PHOTOGRAPHY ANDREAS BRANCH

STYLING EDWARD ARCHER

GROOMING JUANITA LOPEZ

SHOT ON LOCATION AT THE CONRAD LOS ANGELES

When I sit down with John Wall on a Wednesday afternoon in late August it is with slight trepidation. Just one day prior, the NBA point guard had publicly discussed a desire to take his own life during a dark period over the past three years when a slew of injuries, the death of his mother, and pandemic-induced isolation almost became too much. But the man I find before me today is not just surviving, but thriving, and looking toward the future with something like hope.

“I’m super happy,” he declares immediately. “I’m about to take my first vacation in a long time, with my kids and sisters, and it’s for my birthday, so it’ll be dope. I’ve been grinding, working, trying to get back to having the opportunity to play again, and I didn’t get traded at the deadline. There’s a lot of excitement going into the new season.”

Understandably so. Not only does the five-time NBA All-Star have a new team in the LA Clippers, but he’ll (ostensibly) get to actually play this year. Wall sat out his entire last season with the Houston Rockets as the team had decided to rebuild and develop its young guards, and only played a total of 40 games in the last three years overall. But Wall is doing this thing where he focuses on the future, not the past. Tomorrow is another day, as they say, and a good one at that, because pretty soon, he’ll be kicking back, relaxing, and celebrating his upcoming 32nd birthday in his happy place of Turks & Caicos. And he can’t wait.

“I’m just going to vibe. I’m going to sit on boats, go out there on the water, play volleyball, get in the pool, go to dinner. It’s going to be great for me,” he enthuses.

But with so much on the line, getting back to the promise he showed as the first overall pick of the 2010 NBA Draft by the Washington Wizards (where he played from 2010-2020 after only one year of playing college ball for the Kentucky Wildcats) is the priority, so even during this last pre-season hurrah, he has no intention of letting himself slide. “I’m still going to work out while I’m there,” he vows. “It’s not a full vacation for me to the point that I’m not working. I’m taking my basketball coach, my strength coach, and my PT out there with me, so I’ll still be able to get my workouts in from 11 to 1 o’clock every day.”

Photo Credit: Andreas Branch

Now that is dedication. But to Wall, it’s just part of a day’s work. All he’s ever wanted for himself was to play basketball, and he’ll do whatever it takes to get back into fighting form, whatever it takes to be game ready.
He says as much now, talking about how rupturing his Achilles during a fall at home in 2019 impacted his game, his career, and his overall psyche.

“It was a huge blow for me,” he confides, referring not just to this latest ailment, but also a knee injury that caused him to miss 33 games of his third season in 2012 — a problem which continued to plague him from 2015-2018 — and a more recent heel surgery. His Achilles was the final straw. “Nobody really knows that I had three infections where I almost had to amputate my foot. I couldn’t control it. I finally came to the realization: Damn, basketball can be taken away like this.”

Simultaneously, as he was coping with a potentially life-and-career-altering injury, there was more happening behind the seasons in Wall’s world. “My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, my first son was born, and my grandma passed a year later. The thing that I needed, my sanctuary, my peace and escape from everything that was going on in the world, was basketball. And it was taken away from me.”

And with his inner world and the outer world in turmoil, Wall saw a way out. “It was a very dark time,” he admits. “I thought about killing myself twice, about committing suicide.”

He refers to his past, recalling his glory days. “I was damn near the second best player in the East, only under LeBron [James], and easily a top five point guard in the league. Being at the top of the world and hitting rock bottom… well, let’s just say your phone doesn’t ring the same way.”
But the ones who were there for him are those he’ll be grateful to for the rest of his life. “Man, a lot of people in my circle don’t even know this, but hearing their encouraging words or just having their energy around me kept me uplifted when I was thinking about doing certain things. So that’s what got me out of that moment. I was like, yo, God gives his toughest battles to his people. That’s what I always believed in, so I was like, if I can get through this and conquer this, there’s not a lot of shit I can’t get through in this world.”

And he’s here today, stronger than ever, for one very important reason. “I wanted to be true to myself, but also, my son [Ace, 3]. I didn’t think it was fair to take my life, because I would have been taking him away from having a father figure. That was the most important thing to me.” Wall, who’s now also father to Amir, aged 2, adds, “My two boys give me the world. Like, if you see me with them, they just brighten up my world.”
It was hard to keep his pain a secret — from his kids or otherwise — and he paid a price for it. Silence weighed on him heavily. “No one knew I was thinking about suicide,” he admits. “People just knew that I was looking for happiness, that I felt like, ‘Why every time I try to get better do I keep on getting knocked right back down?’ And it was just me. I wasn’t smiling, I wasn’t being the happy person that I always am, bringing the energy I bring. And when I realized that and really looked at myself in the mirror, I was like, only you can get you out of this dark spot. I started thinking my mom wouldn’t want this for me. And luckily, I was able to get out of that hole.”

He went to therapy, and that helped. In fact, he says first admitting that he needed help, actively seeking it out, and then talking about his problems was likely what saved him, helped “clear my mind and kept me more at peace.”

And now?

“I’m happy. I’m smiling in damn near every picture you see. I have a great opportunity to be in LA, to network and be around great opportunities outside of basketball. I’ve got the opportunity to play for the Clippers and be around a lot of great talent and have a great coach. And here, everybody’s goal is to win. You know what I mean? We’re all older guys, we don’t have egos. And [most importantly], I get to play basketball again. It’s getting closer and closer to the opening game, training camp, media day. Last year, I didn’t even do media day. I didn’t feel like I was part of a team. Now, people are excited to see me. Just walking into the gym [my teammates] are like, ‘The game missed you. The game needs you.’ To get that kind of respect from my peers still after not playing for a whole year means a lot.”

Winston Churchill famously said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going,” and that’s what Wall has done. He says that, although he’d never want to relive the past, he learned something about himself from it. And it’s that he can and will keep going.

“I always knew I was a strong person. Anything I’m doing, I give it 110 percent effort. But I think this time took me to a different level of confidence, another level of strength that I didn’t think I had.”

Photo Credit: Andreas Branch

I know now that, whenever John Wall quits playing basketball, he’s going to continue to bounce,” Wall declares, and I believe him. These recent trials and tribulations are par for the course on a rollercoaster of highs and lows he’s ridden his entire life.

He grew up in a low-income area of North Carolina, with a father who, having previously served time in prison for second-degree murder, was convicted of armed robbery when John was just a year old; he died of liver cancer just one month after his release from prison in 1999 at age 52. Wall’s half-brother, John Carroll Wall Jr., promised to take care of the family at their father’s funeral, but was incarcerated shortly after and wasn’t released until 2018. His mother, Frances Pulley, worked multiple jobs to support him, his sister, Cierra, and his half-sister, Tonya. But without any kind of stable male role model, Wall constantly got into fights, and was even cut from his high school basketball team as a sophomore for bad behavior.

“I became the man of the house at nine,” he recalls. “My mom worked four jobs, and I’d only see her when she took me and picked me up from school. I was always talented, always good, but I had a bad attitude. And then my tenth grade year, I got cut from the basketball team. That was the first time I ever saw my mom cry about basketball. She sat me down and was like, ‘Either you’re gonna change who you are and make life better and easier for the family, or you can go down the same road as your brother and dad and end up in jail or just be in trouble.’ And that’s when I started to take basketball to a whole other level. I was like, alright, I can’t disappoint her anymore. I’m going to make it out of here.”

As we all know, he did. And despite his rocky road, Wall has also had his fair share of scores. He has averaged 18.9 points, 9.2 assists, 4.4 rebounds and 1.7 steals in 541 games with 529 starts in nine NBA seasons, joining Magic Johnson as the only players to post those averages in a career; has joined Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, and Chris Paul as the only players in NBA history to average at least 17 points, eight assists, and four rebounds through the first 345 games of their careers; has won Eastern Conference Player of the Week seven times in his career; is a five-time All-Star; and was selected as a member of the United States camp roster to compete for the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup team (though had to withdraw his name from consideration for USA Basketball’s 2016 Rio Olympics team due to off-season knee surgery).
And now, he wants to make up for lost time. There will be no talk of retirement when he still has more to prove. “I feel like I’ve got another five, six more good years in me. At this point in my career, I’m better with my diet, I know how to recover better, and I’m picking guys’ brains that invest in their bodies on how to continue to have longevity in their careers. I’m not done yet,” he maintains.

Photo Credit: Andreas Branch

But that doesn’t mean he isn’t looking at what’s next. How could he ignore the wonders that Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the world, has to offer? He’s not a fool. He shares that he’s going back to finish his degree in business management, that he’s investing in different ventures, including two cannabis chains, a bike company, and a liquor brand. He has an investment manager. And one day in the future, when he does retire from basketball, he wants to become a coach or GM. He’ll also continue to focus on the work that he does through his John Wall Family Foundation, the non-profit he founded 12 years ago, which continues to strive to improve the quality of life for disadvantaged families and to impact the lives of at-risk youth in North Carolina and Washington, DC.

After we chat about the good he’s done for his hometown communities, we move on to the other things he loves, and there are many. “I’ve got a big heart and I love giving back to my community; trying to help other people as much as possible. I love the game of basketball. I’m big on family: I stand by ‘loyalty is love.’ And I live by my favorite quote, ‘Never satisfied, so determined.’ No matter where you make it in life, you should always be determined to get more out of it.”

Which is why he’s back with a vengeance and drive to make as much of this new chapter as possible. “I’m grateful to be alive. I’m grateful that I have the luxury of waking up every day, and breathing, that I get another day on earth, being able to play the game I love, and to be a father to my kids.”

He’s grateful for both his strengths and weaknesses; that his Achilles has mended so he can bowl three times a week (he’s hardcore, despite not owning his own ball or Big Lebowski-style ensemble… yet); and that he has a slew of new and understanding teammates to join his legendary spades gaming nights at Casa Wall.

Most of all, he’s grateful for second chances. “I definitely think I’m improving as a person,” he admits. “I’m a better father, a better basketball player. And I know now not to take this time for granted.”