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COVER STORY BREAKING THE WALL TH
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
hen I sit down with W John Wall on a Wednesday afternoon in late August, it is with apprehension. 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 NBAAll-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 NBADraft 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.” 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. HisAchilles 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-careeraltering 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 super happy,” he declares. “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.”
