John Wall’s career in the NBA may be over, but he isn’t walking away from the game he loves just yet.
Wall, who officially retired on Tuesday, is joining the Prime Video studio crew as the streaming service enters its first season carrying NBA broadcasts as part of an 11-year rights deal.
The former Wizards star will join Blake Griffin and Dirk Nowitzki, who previously had been announced as the primary analysts, as well as Dwyane Wade, Steve Nash, and Candace Parker, who will be splitting time between calling games and working in the studio.
Wall, 34, is hoping that he can connect with fans and share his deep knowledge of the game with them through broadcasting, he told the Washington Post.
“If you never really had the opportunity to sit down and talk to me, you won’t really understand how much I love basketball, where my basketball mind is at, where my IQ is,” Wall said. “I can basically tell you the best player in the country — from girls to boys, high school, to the players that’s in college, to the people that’s at the NBA and WNBA.”
Wall has limited broadcast experience, having worked a pair of G League Winter Showcase games on ESPN and NBA TV last winter.
Following the experience, he told the Associated Press that it was an outlet for him to talk about basketball, something “I love to do” and that it was what he did “when I’m home, watching with my friends and kids.”
He joked that they all would eventually end up telling him to “‘shut up and let us watch.’”
Wall retired after 11 seasons in the NBA and finished with five All-Star nods and averaging 18.7 points per game and 8.9 assists per game during his career.
He played nine seasons with the Wizards before spending a season with the Rockets and Clippers.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
