Official John Wall Appreciation Thread 2.0

[DaRealHibachi]

Finally, some constructive (and objective) discussion regarding Wall; not the "what have you done for me lately" mood-swing BS we've been reading for the last couple of days...

Thanks Kev, Dat, tontoz, PIF and the rest for making this board readable again...

[MDStar]

I for one am glad that Wall is actually starting to shoot more. Of course it would be better if he made more, but I see improvement in his form that I didn't see last year. And instead of getting down on him self and just not shooting, he's actually still pulling the trigger when open and looking disappointed when he misses. Almost as if he's expecting to make it. Which still sucks but is light years of an improvement from last year.

[Dark Faze]

Funny thing about John was that his 3pt shooting as a rookie was pretty much where other high caliber rook points were. He wasn't a great shooter but he was usually good for at least one a game.

I just don't know what happened that off-season. Absolutely not taking that shot isn't the answer. I think if he kept shooting the long ball at the rate he did his rookie year he'd probably be around a 34% 3pt shooter, which is still bad, but good enough to get hot on some nights.

[Nivek]

I've posted several times (and emailed the guys I used to talk with in the front office) about how it was a bad move for Wall to stop shooting 3pters. Whoever told him to stop shooting 3s was wrong. If Wall made that decision on his own, the math should be explained to him and he should be coached.

[montestewart]

Wall was hitting 3s at a nearly .300 rate in his rookie year, and he's slowly progressing toward a .400 rate from 10-23. If he reaches .300/.400 respectively, I won't worry so much that he and the team are ignoring the shooting issue.

[Dat2U]

Yeah it would so much better to have Wall shooting 33% on 3s than on long 2s.

IMO, for a coaching staff to suggest, encourage or not correct Wall on shooting long 2s and ignoring 3s is a fire-able offense. That's the impact bad coaching has. You think statistics driven front offices in Houston, OKC or San Antonio would have told or allowed him to completely ignore the 3? Not a chance.

[B-easy]

Wizards really do need a new coaching staff. I think a clean slate would be refreshing.

[Higga]

Well with Wall the Wiz are 7-7. Without him they were....not even close to .500. He may not be a superstar but the team is clearly leaps and bounds better when he plays. It is disappointing he's not significantly better now in his third season than he was as a rookie, our player development sucks balls.

[Nivek]

Well with Wall the Wiz are 7-7. Without him they were....not even close to .500. He may not be a superstar but the team is clearly leaps and bounds better when he plays.

This is lucky shirt theory and gets us nowhere. For Wall to be valuable, he needs to be the cause of the team being better. As you look at the table below, keep in mind the story that's told about how Wall improves the team. Specifically, that Wall makes life easier for his teammates on offense through more transition opportunities and through Wall's ability to penetrate and find the open man.

Here's a quickie table showing the team's performance since Wall's return:

Code: Select all

STAT    w/Wall  w/oWall
ORTG    102.3   101.4
DRTG    98.3    99.8


This is showing the team's performance ONLY since Wall returned from injury. Either Wall is so incredibly good that he's making life easier for his teammates even when he's on the bench, or the team's improvement since Wall's return could merely be coincidental -- a reversion to the mean for guys who'd been under-performing their true ability.

Over at the blog yesterday, I went searching for something positive to write about Wall's performance, and even went so far as to back out his crummy shooting. In the games since his return, his teammates have an efg of .517 when they're on the floor with Wall and an efg of .499 when he's on the bench. That difference amounts to less than one made FG per 40 minutes.

In that 7-3 run, Wall helped, but the real drivers of the better outcomes were (in order): Okafor, Webster, Price, Beal, Wall and Nene.

"Leaps and bounds" in this case amounts to maybe 0.9 points per 100 possessions on offense, and an extra made FG per 40 minutes.

Unless, of course, someone wants to make the argument that Wall is a lockdown defender who has transmogrified the Wizards defense to the tune of 1.5 points per 100 possessions. Haven't heard anyone even attempt that one.

Or, I guess someone could trot out the Leader 'O Men theory and argue that Wall's leadership and presence is so powerful that the team is playing better even when he's not on the floor because...umm...something.

[Zonkerbl]

I don't know -- replace your marginal d-league starting PG with a legit, slightly-above-average-starter-quality starting PG and you're bound to see a certain amount of improvement regardless.

[Nivek]

Good point, Zonker. And the Wizards, actually doubled up on the PG change. Wall returned to the lineup on January 12, and AJ Price returned on January 7. During that 7-3 run, Price actually played better than Wall.

[Dat2U]

I think here it gets kind of blurry when it comes to statistics. What's Wall's real impact? Is he influencing the improved play of others or not? It's easy to look at the numbers and marginalize Wall's presence, but would this team have really gone 7-3 if Wall was not playing?

Say only Price came back and the Wizards signed a replacement level player, I wonder what our record would be during that 10 game timeframe?

[nate33]

Here's a quickie table showing the team's performance since Wall's return:

Code: Select all

STAT    w/Wall  w/oWall
ORTG    102.3   101.4
DRTG    98.3    99.8

Basketball reference has the following data:

Code: Select all

STAT    w/Wall  w/oWall
ORTG    100.9    96.4
DRTG    98.3    103.4

[Nivek]

I'm guessing B-R's numbers are for the full season. I'm looking at the numbers strictly since Wall's return.

[nate33]

I'm guessing B-R's numbers are for the full season. I'm looking at the numbers strictly since Wall's return.

Shouldn't the W/Wall numbers be the same then?

[Nivek]

In theory, yes. My guess is there's a difference in methodology between b-r and nbawowy. Since the drtg numbers are the same (for the w/Wall column), it's probably a difference in counting/estimating possessions. My guess is that Evan is counting and b-r is estimating. Just a guess, though.

[Nivek]

Just looked at b-r's on/off numbers again. One thing you can't do there (at least not that I could find) is what nbawowy is designed to do -- look at a team with and without certain players on the floor. I'll diddle with it some more tomorrow.

[Dark Faze]

John Walls on/off net court rating is better than most guards in the NBA right now.

To call our recent winning ways a "coincidence" with Wall is simply unfair and false.

http://www.82games.com/1213/12WAS1.HTM#onoff

Defensively this team is 7.3 points per 100 possessions worse when John is off the court. When he's on the court 6.5 points better. Simply put, Johns presence drastically improves defense and offense both.

Nene has the biggest effect on the team with a simple rating of 10, with John coming in second at 7. Other than that all are other players have negative positive effect on average for the season if not a negative overall rating.

To put this into perspective, Kyrie Irving has a simple rating of 5.3, Westbrook 6.8, Lilard 5.1.

So he's affecting games more than a lot of the higher tier guards. Paul and Parker are better at 11.3 and 9.1 respectively, but John just plain helps this team win games. Simple as that.

[GhostsOfGil]

I hate using 82games.com because they rarely update their database. The last time they updated was 1/28/2013 which only includes 9 of his 15 games.

[nate33]

From the NY game thread:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu865PDGniI[/youtube]