Wall’s windfall is cost of living in the NBA

Get your money for nothing. Get your checks for free.

OK, that’s not the exact line from Dire Straits’ 1985 all-time classic, “Money for Nothing,” which features one of Mark Knopfler’s coolest and meanest riffs.

MTV also isn’t what it used to be, and hasn’t been since the early 1990s.

But receiving $40.8 million just to go away?

Being paid $44.3 million last season not to play for a rebuilding Rockets team that again finished with the worst record in pro basketball? Congrats, John Wall. You’re living the dream — and that dream could only exist in the NBA.

Wall’s surreal, unbelievably effortless payday would have been daily national TV talkshow fodder if the former No. 1 overall pick played in the NFL.

In MLB, Wall’s money-fornothing benefits would have dragged down an entire roster and been a two-year albatross that created mounting frustration within the clubhouse.

In the NBA, all of the cash that Wall collected from the Rockets was simply how the game is played. For billionaire owner Tilman Fertitta, paying Wall $44.3 million not to play last season, then paying him another $40.8 million (with a cool $6.5 million taken off the top) to likely become a Los Angeles Clipper was just the cost of doing business in The Association.

There has to be a better way to spread around all the money, right?

There is, and that’s one of the primary reasons the NBA endured a serious lockout in 2011. Sixteen games were ultimately erased from the regular-season schedule in the attempt to level the hardwood between the financial haves and have nots.

Small markets, guaranteed contracts and $40.8 million buyouts are a conversation for another contentious collective bargaining agreement.

The reality right now is that Wall was a huge miss for the Rockets — at least a declining Russell Westbrook reached the second round of the Western Conference playoffs during his lone season in red.

The Rockets rightfully sat Wall last season because all of their youth needed more playing time. The Rockets infused their roster with more youth during last week’s exciting NBA draft. And there was no way in the world that Wall was playing for the super-young Rockets this year.

Christian Wood had to be traded.

Wall had to go. Now.

But how crazy do these numbers look in this wobbly, overpriced economy?

Wall played just 40 games in two seasons as a Rocket. He shot a career-low 40.4 percent from the floor during those 40 games. The Rockets lost James Harden and produced a 20-game losing streak during the peak of the Wall-era. And Wall received a total of $126.3 million as a temporary Houstonian for being a veteran “leader” on two teams that finished with the worst record in the league.

His last official game with Rockets was on April 23, 2021. The five-time All-Star hasn’t played close to a full season since 2016-17.

Now, part of that surreal $126.3 million is a whopping $40.8 million buyout that ensures Wall won’t sit on the Rockets’ bench again this year.

Only in America?

Only in the NBA.