It’s time for John Wall.
He came into the league as a No. 1 overall pick with the promise that he could be one of those few and hard to find true franchise anchor players in the NBA. That he could be a guy who changed the fortune of a franchise for a decade or more.
And it hasn’t been that way. There have been flashes of that potential, but for the most part Wall’s first two seasons in the NBA have been good but not great. He scored 16.3 points per game and added 8 assists last season, but he has no jumper — he took 4.4 shots a game from 16 feet out to the arc last season and hit 29 percent of them. And when he went up for a three everyone cringed (at least he did that less often). You go under the pick on him.
This is the year Wall is going to show he can live up to the promise, or he’s going to show he’s a good but not elite point guard. And he seems to know that, from the tone of his comments to Dime Magazine (via the Washington Post’s Sports Bog, who gives us these quotes).
“You wanna do it all,” Wall told Dime. “You wanna be an All-Star. You wanna be one of the top five best point guards. You wanna make the playoffs, and get this city back to where they know they can be. When you have the playoffs, I heard how crazy it could be when everybody is wearing all white. That’s what I want to get to. I want to be the savior.”
“As a player,” Wall said, describing what would make him feel successful, “I think be where everybody expects me to be: lead my team, being a clutch performer, being a superstar. That’s what I think about putting it in exact words that I need to, so I can finally lead to my superstar statement and be one of the top five point guards in the league.”
Here is why I think fans need to give Wall one more real shot this year before moving on — fit.
Where you land matters. And Wall landed in a locker room that was a steaming pile of… well, you know. His rookie year the locker room’s dominant personality was Gilbert Arenas following his suspension for the gun incident. Then the personalities of JaVale McGee, Andray Blatche and Nick Young started to take over and you had a team with a lot of talent but lacking professionalism in preparation and focus.
Ask yourself this question — what if Wall had instead spent the last two seasons around the Celtics’ locker room? How would his approach to the game and his understanding of how to be a professional be different? (And on the flip side, what would Rajon Rondo be like if his first two seasons were in a locker room like the Wizards?)
The Wizards have a better culture in the locker room now. You may say Nene is overpaid but the guy shows up and is a professional. Trevor Ariza and Emeka Okafor come ready to play every night. Rookie Bradley Beal looked good at Summer League.
But this team will only go as far as John Wall takes them. It is all on him now to be the franchise player. At least he seems to recognize that.
