NBA players have always chafed at either perceived or legitimate inequalities in yearly payroll. The only ways in which an NBA veteran can be anything less than well off is to become the victim of massive theft, or to carelessly mishandle one’s savings; yet that doesn’t stop those making seven or eight figures yearly from glancing sideways at former friends, teammates, or even some of the league’s most beloved (and well-heeled) superstars.

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This brand of griping, however, has toned down a bit since the signing of the 1995 and 1999 league Collective Bargaining Agreements. With that in place, the recent massive uptick in salary cap room due to the league’s new national television deal could and probably should be causing quite a bit of intrigue, as those that signed giant contracts prior to the $24 million rise in cap space have good reason to curse their timing.

And, perhaps, any teammate that signed a new deal during the 2016 offseason.

Washington’s John Wall, however, wants anyone and everyone to know that he doesn’t rank amongst those sorts of kvetchers. With a month to go before training camp, Wall released a video on Uninterrupted claiming as much:

Beal, despite a star-crossed four-year career that has seen him miss 81 games due to a series of knee and leg injuries, signed a five-year, $128 million maximum contract extension this summer. Wall is about to enter the third year of a five-year, $80 million (then-“maximum”) contract extension he signed in 2013.

Wall went on to say that he also isn’t jealous of James Harden’s new four-year, $118 million contract extension, pointing out that he isn’t “watching money.” Harden was able to sign such an extension (and semi-renegotiation) with Houston because of room under the team’s salary cap space, utilizing a CBA provision that Washington is unable to with Wall.

We’ve no reason to not believe John Wall when he purports to not caring about the stacks. Save for all the reasons we have to not believe John Wall.

The three-time Wizards All-Star candidly went on record in 2015 in talking about Detroit Piston Reggie Jackson’s contract extension, a rarity even in a league full of players that hem and haw behind the scenes over what other people are making. Wall was coming off of his second All-Star appearance during that chat, while Jackson (who signed for as much as Wall did two years prior) was just peeling off his first few months as a full-time starter in Detroit prior to signing on the dotted line.

Just days before the video hit, Bradley Beal himself noted that Washington’s hoped-for dream backcourt sometimes has “a tendency to dislike each other on the court.” Again, these thoughts are hardly a rarity for stars either sanguine or scrappy, but NBA players still tend to keep these sorts of musings (no matter how accurate) off the record.

Then there were those dastardly anonymous sources, like the one that told The Ringer that John Wall “has jealously issues” and was “rankled” by the massive contract James Harden was not only given by the Rockets, but the endorsement deal a shoe company (one also endorsed by Wall) gave the 2015 NBA MVP runner-up.

From one unnamed agent, to The Ringer:

To that end, it is pointed that Wall would directly point at Beal and especially Harden in his dismissal of the rumor mongering.

James Harden may have been a bit of a national joke last season in leading a potential-laden Houston Rockets club down the path toward oblivion, but he is a legitimate MVP candidate when his head is on straight, and a clear endorsement draw in ways that John Wall just hasn’t proven to be thus far.

The Beal conundrum? That’s something else.

Although he only turned 23 in June, Beal’s injury limitations can’t help but alter the league-wise perception of him. The Wizards understandably also couldn’t help but sign him to that maximum-deal, now one of the league’s richest for a player who worked fewer than two-thirds of an available game on average last season (a mark that could sustain for the rest of his career), as you can’t either lose or annoy this sort of talent based off of injury uneasiness alone. Still, there is the fear that he could turn into an Eric Gordon of sorts – a promising talent cut short in his early 20s due to a series of unending leg injuries.

Beal does work at the shooting guard slot, as Gordon does, and that is the NBA’s least-important position even in an era that places paramount importance upon hitting threes (which Beal hit at a 39 percent clip last year, he’s just under 40 percent on his career). Still, Gordon relied and relies more on slashing than Beal does; and though Bradley is hardly a one-dimensional offensive player, his hamstrung legs and game still figure to age well. An odd thing to say for someone who just hit 23, but here we are.

Bradley can slash, too, and especially well when Wall is off the court. For John Wall to place him as the “A-1” next to Wall’s “A” might seem a little uncouth, but at this point a “B” grade underneath John Wall’s A ranking should be more than sufficient for Bradley Beal. Wall has some work to do in order to make the pair a more formidable duo, but Wall was also bordering on being kindly in associating Beal with being just below John Wall’s level by nearly imperceptible stretches.

Especially considering that nearly $48 million difference in extension rates.

As mentioned above, the NBA mostly put the kibosh on public chafing over contrasting contracts and/or contract extensions with its work with the players union during the 1995 and 1998-99 league lockouts. The establishment of the rookie salary structure in 1995 and the league-wide implementation of both maximum salaries and year-by-year raise limits made it so stars were mostly working at the same pay levels.

There were grandfathered-in outliers, though. Two of which caused ripples that either got in the way of a dynasty, or limited a legendary dynasty’s championship scope.

Kevin Garnett entered the 1999 season set to make a pay jump from $2.1 million to $14 million in the first year of a six-year, $121 contract extension he signed in 1997, prior to the new max salary rules. Minnesota Timberwolves teammate Stephon Marbury, who purportedly spent the entire six-month 1998 lockout ignoring everything to do with the “entire six-month 1998 lockout,” was more than annoyed at the fact that he could “only” sign a six-year, $70.9 million deal due to the new rules, despite being drafted just a year after KG.

Upset at the difference, he forced a trade to his “hometown” New Jersey Nets prior to signing an extension with that club, rather than a Timberwolves team that seemed poised to be the NBA’s next great young squad.

Kobe Bryant signed for the same Marbury-level numbers with Los Angeles that winter, and though he wasn’t as churlish as Marbury was in Stephon’s attempts to flee the same locker room as KG, it added to the buildup of pre-existing enmity that stood as the core of his and Shaquille O’Neal’s relationship. Shaq was in the third year of a five-year, $100 million deal he signed in 1996, whereas Kobe would make just $1.3 million in 1999 despite having started the All-Star Game the season before, hitting $9 million in 1999-00 in a season that O’Neal (an MVP that year) would make $17.1 million.

Worse for Kobe was the idea that O’Neal (like Garnett) was grandfathered into more massive pay-raises due to the fact that Shaq signed his initial deal before the 1999 CBA agreement. Shaquille O’Neal would make nearly twice as much as Bryant over the last three years that the two played together, between 2000 and 2004, prior to the dissolution of the three-ring (literally) pairing.

(Then there is the case of Seattle’s Shawn Kemp, who bristled at the fact that after the bonanza 1996 offseason Gary Payton would make over three times as much as him in 1996-97, and that newly-signed center Jim McIlvaine would make almost as much as Kemp’s $3.3 million that year. Kemp perpetually seemed unaware that, due to the 1995 CBA agreement, teams without cap space could not re-negotiate current contracts, and he eventually forced a trade to Cleveland just 15 months after the SuperSonics competed in the NBA Finals.)

John Wall may have gotten the message, as his “I will make my money down the road” send-off implies. We certainly hope so, because the lead in to what felt like a necessary declaration of “nah, I’m good, man” didn’t exactly paint him as the most understanding of sorts when it came to spiraling deals.

That’s OK, though. It’s human nature and it points to a brand of competitiveness. One would just have to hope this sort of doggedness not only serves to drive Wall’s game next season, but for him also to help push Bradley Beal into the All-Star strata that Beal’s new contract seems to suggest.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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