Official John Wall Appreciation Thread

[Dark Faze]

I was at the first game Wall was back. Haven't seen the others, but his defense in the Hawks game was damn near error free. I was amazed by his man D in that one.

And after watching that Lakers game last night, I was actually thinking that "Man I'm glad we have John Wall", just seeing Nash struggle to penetrate and play defense showed how much we underrated what John brings to the table.

[fishercob]

Everything was right about the article except the part about Wall being shoot first and pass second. That's absurd. Yes, Wall can't shoot. Yes, Wall is a straight line runner. Yes, Wall isn't the greatest decision maker. But not a PG? That's just stupid.

As we've discussed before, for Wall, it all boils down to his jumper. If he can get good enough to force teams to come around on top of the pick, Wall can be elite. If defenders can go under the screen, Wall will never be more than a 2nd tier PG. It's that simple.

The troubling thing is that his form barely looks any better. His shot is broken.

See, I disagree. While I'd obviously like to see his jumper improve, his decision-making and turnovers are an even bigger concern for me. Look at the career Andre Miller has had with essentially no jumper, and he's the polar opposite of Wall athletically. But anyway you slice it, John has a ton of work to do.

[nate33]

Everything was right about the article except the part about Wall being shoot first and pass second. That's absurd. Yes, Wall can't shoot. Yes, Wall is a straight line runner. Yes, Wall isn't the greatest decision maker. But not a PG? That's just stupid.

As we've discussed before, for Wall, it all boils down to his jumper. If he can get good enough to force teams to come around on top of the pick, Wall can be elite. If defenders can go under the screen, Wall will never be more than a 2nd tier PG. It's that simple.

The troubling thing is that his form barely looks any better. His shot is broken.

See, I disagree. While I'd obviously like to see his jumper improve, his decision-making and turnovers are an even bigger concern for me. Look at the career Andre Miller has had with essentially no jumper, and he's the polar opposite of Wall athletically. But anyway you slice it, John has a ton of work to do.

Andre Miller has a good midrange game, just not out beyond 18 feet.

I think Wall's turnover problems will go away if he develops a jumper. The defense will have to play him honestly and it will open up more driving lanes and passing lanes.

[GhostsOfGil]

So it's only been three games, but I don't agree with the praise that some have been giving Wall for his defense. I've seen below average defense. He keeps leaving his man, keeps gambling, and doesn't do very well on the pick-and-roll, which is imperative for a pg.

He looks like a lot of college players--a flurry of activity, but necessarily in a good way.

This is not to say that his defense won't get better, or to say that he can't be an outstanding defender one day. I just haven't seen any indication of that in these three games.

His first game, his defense was phenomenal. Been a slippery slope downwards since then.

[Illmatic21]

^Granted, he just came back from injury. When he's at full strength I don't think we'll be complaining about his defense.

[Upper Decker]

While I don't think anyone can defense Wall's decision making during the past two seasons I don't think his decision making has been bad thus far this season--granted 3 games so small sample size. I think he's done a pretty good job reading the PnR with Nene and making high-quality difficult passes, as well as, deciding when to attack and finding open shooters, like he did with Webster and Beal in the 4th.

It's easy for anyone to look like a poor decision maker when they're on the floor with both Vesely and Ariza. Neither are even slightly respected by the opposition. All eyes are on him so no driving lanes, no passing lanes, and the offense totally stalls. It's not Walls fault Vesely is worthless and bogs down the half-court offense. How does that make him a bad decision maker?

[miller31time]

Official John Wall Appreciation Thread 2.0