doclinkin wrote:Kanyewest wrote:Shanghai Kid wrote:I understand that Durant is a way better shooter than John, but it is interesting to see the contrast in how people see Durant post achillees and how they see John.
Obviously Durant is starting at a higher level of ability, but relatively speaking most appear to think he's still going to be a top 5-10 player.
Any talk of John Wall seems to suggest that literally his career might be over. John is a full two years younger than KD but I guess it's just the whole "relying on speed" dynamic.
Cheering for John to prove people wrong.
I hope so but I don't even think Wall playing like a top 30 NBA player when he went down with his injury. Durant was arguably the best player in the world when he suffered that injury. People are assuming that there will be a significant drop off with Durant but are optimistically hoping that he will be a top 8-13 player. If Wall drops off then this contract looks really bad. Wall would have to get back to his peak in 2016-17 to make this contract look less foolish. Wall will literally have to play better than he did at any point of his career to justify that contract when the Wizards gave him the super max.
Or John would have to play better defense and give us about 80% of his production at the other end, and then the rising tide of other players contracts catch and pass Wall so it doesn't look as bad as we feared when compared to the average player rewards around the league. As is what usually happens when you ink a good player long term.
So the real question is: can John get back to being a good player. I for one don't rule that out. He's motivated, more mature, and has a chip on his shoulder. Plus: when has he ever had a PF who is a threat to score? Or a stretch 5? He's a pass first guy who has been passing to who? Bradley Beal and that's about it. In TBjr and Hachimura he has two players who attack without hesitation and finish at a high efficiency rate. And who have good hands in motion. The John Wall pick and roll action made Gortat look like one of the most efficient players in the league. And Gortat couldn't hop a tictac. Or shoot outside of six feet.
I think this is the one I am the most concerned about. I think John Wall gave up on defense in the 2nd half of the 2016-17 season, perhaps due to the toll of playing the entire games that left him fatigue by the time the postseason came around and hasn't looked the same on that end since. I think he has been the weak link defensively in the starting lineup over the last two playoff series (at least until Otto got injured and then the Wizards had to rely on an inexperienced Kelly Oubre in game 6 against Toronto)
He looked like he was dealing with an injury so he has to recover from that as well as his Achilles injury which he wasn't able to do in 2018-19 .
I'm also not sure if Brook can coach Wall up to play defense. Maybe Wittman didn't discourage Wall to take those mid-rangers but he did seem to do better on that end (or maybe it was just Nene making up for his defensive mistakes plus the spacing has changed a lot since then).
Yeah, I suppose if Rui could do better than Nene/Morris scoring 14 ppg on higher efficiency. Bryant as a stretch 5 could be interesting if he gets his 3 point percentages up. I suppose the Wizards had guys like Mike Scott- hopefully Bryant can become a better defender.
I think Wall can get better however I am not sure I can buy into the hype either especially after waiting for improvements over the last few offseasons. I think he can get back to where he was but I am not buying him getting back to becoming a top 15 player yet. Hope he can prove me wrong.
