Exactly this. Plenty of motivation.

That's silly, there was no play here. Nobody will believe Wright solely on Gavin's word in anything but the extreme short term, which has already passed (without a play, like Wright announcing he is Satoshi, owns half a billion in bitcoin and will sell it, thereby manipulating the price). What did Wright and Gavin gain from this? Yet Gavin lost a lot of credibility.

In short, I don't this this is likely.

I don't think Wright gained anything. Gavin, however, gained an enormous sum of money. If Wright paid him.

Assume incompetence (or normal human gullibility) over malice.

I do assume. But my point is I think most people would probably sacrifice their credibility for a lump sum, especially if they knew the person wasn't going to be able to convince the public.

But why would Wright pay Gavin? What did he expect to gain?

The article goes a bit into detail - Wright is on the hook for a few million dollars of tax issues, and seems to urgently need a plausible (to a judge) legal source of extremely large amounts of bitcoin or face persecution (possibly criminal) for tax fraud.

Regardless of is/not, Wright says he did it to never do it again.