Official John Wall Appreciation Thread 2.0

[montestewart]

but his jumper just looks good now. its not pretty like a ray allen jumper or even a brad beal. but it looks fixed, patched up if you will.

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/23 ... ith-Jumper
I hope there's truly measurable improvement. That's the kind of progress that could really energize the team, especially in light of Okafor's injury.

[deneem4]

http://stats.nba.com/featured/2013_fant ... adder.html

Wall is #10...thts good company

On another note...the onky thing stopping wall is himself, this yr he has to realize if beal isnt open he has to score, not pass but score...thats exactly what he did at the end last yr...he decided he was the 1st option and the 4th option with webster and beal being the other 2...

Thats how tose turned the corner...rose was good but he became great when he decided not to pass 1st, when he start feeling lik if he hd the shot or the lane hes going to take it...and thts how russell westbrook plays (even with durant) andtthat's how wall played ending last yr

Now if a healthy beal nene webster...hes going to fall back into passing 1st which is going to set him back...he needs to be the #1 option and biggest threat on the floor for us to win...of course he has to giv beal his looks...but those will come...but he cant inbound snd come down the court thinking about setting a play his first thought should be can I score here...thats what separates him from rose and westbrook...thats how the old chris paul used to play back with the hornets

Wall has to shoulder the scoring load when he reach the top of the key the defense big man should be drifting towards the paint anticipating wall coming, wing defenders should be drifting towards the middle of the floor thinkin on stopping wall when he blow by his man...if u watch games tht what happen when a kobe or rose or lebron or westbrook get to the top of the key....

[stevemcqueen1]

It's easy to make a broad statement like "He needs to put the team on his shoulders and score." I think it's pretty empty to say that.

"He needs to consistently make the right decisions" is as specific as I'd go.

LeBron talked about how people used to kill him for being selfish and how he wasn't doing enough to elevate his teammates. He mentioned he led the league in scoring and it didn't get his team anywhere. Then he got better at facilitating his teammates and making better decisions to distribute the ball per the situation and now people kill him for lacking a "killer instinct" and being unwilling to will his team to the win.

John doesn't necessarily need to focus on scoring. He needs to consistently find the best shots because he's almost always going to be the one with the ball in his hands at the beginning of possessions. It'll entirely depend on the situation, sometimes it will be his shot, sometimes it will be someone else's. There is really no point in trying to make a generalized declaration like, "John needs to think of himself as the first option" and ignore the role that contingency plays in proper decision making.

[deneem4]

Lebron actually got his team somewhere...his problem was being selfish it was the lack of killer instinct from the start, back in Cleveland in the playoffs when it was critical parts of thr games he thought to pass 1st instead of being the clutch player.....that's lebron only knock is he lacks a clutch gene, players likr melo and kobe wayyy worse than lebron was at ball hogging, but they actually was clutch in critical situations and could say they're team mates wasnt stepping up, lebron cant say that because he wasnt scoring either

If u watch basketball and actually look at good teams...they main player tskr over when other players arrnt hitting they're shots whether they can pass to a good look or not..

.if webster is 3-15 and havent hit a 3, but have an open look at the end of the game
Would u rather wall try to score or pass to him?

Lebron used to pass, kobe passed that 1 time, and got ridiculed for it...

A real star wont pass they make the score, it sounds backward but history tell you thts how it has yo be in certain situations

Were a shooting team if out shooters arent hitting we have no reliable post game only thing left is wall penatration and thts what we'll have to rely on to win the game, thats hoe chicago gets theyre wins with rose...thts hoe the clippers suppose to do it with paul

[payitforward]

It's easy to make a broad statement like "He needs to put the team on his shoulders and score." I think it's pretty empty to say that.

"He needs to consistently make the right decisions" is as specific as I'd go.

I don't get any commentary of this kind at all. It's all essentially metaphorical. E.g. how do you know if a guy "consistently makes the right decisions"? You look at the numbers.

Wall needs to shoot better -- we were hoping for that based on last Spring. So far this Fall, we haven't seen it.

Wall needs to turn it over less -- again, this is something we have been hoping for. He's had one good game in that regard, and maybe overall so far (driven by that one good game) he's improved; I haven't checked, and it's too small a sample to worry about anyway.

He does those things, and the results will be elevated sufficiently to establish him.

[GhostsOfGil]

Wall needs to shoot better -- we were hoping for that based on last Spring. So far this Fall, we haven't seen it.

Wall needs to turn it over less -- again, this is something we have been hoping for. He's had one good game in that regard, and maybe overall so far (driven by that one good game) he's improved; I haven't checked, and it's too small a sample to worry about anyway.

He does those things, and the results will be elevated sufficiently to establish him.

Hopefully it's offseason rust because last year, Wall did indeed show improvement in those two areas.

[FAH1223]

[manifested]

I want to feel good about this team but it's been way too many years of rooting for bad teams to suddenly get optimistic about having a winning team.

The main thing I'll be looking for tonight is how John Wall looks. If he looks like he has all preseason, I'm going to start getting worried. If he's able to hit some jump shots, keep the turnovers low, and still be aggressive with his speed, I'll feel pretty good about the chances for a win.

My pessimistic thought: This team will go as Wall goes. If he has a rough start to the season and he starts getting frustrated (like he did last year before Okafor talked to him), is he now mature enough to pull himself out of it?

[hands11]

Here we go John.

The start to the season you didn't get to show up last year.

[JonathanJoseph]

It's the first game of the year and I already can't stand watching him play.

Not only is John Wall not a max player, but he's not even a "winning" player. Regardless of whatever other moves are made, the Wizards will never get beyond the first round of the playoffs with John Wall at the point. And since no one will trade for that contract, that will be another FIVE years.

Write it down, take a picture, whatever. The Curse of Les Boulez.

[GhostsOfGil]

Comon now.. The light turned on during the second half. Wall looked great in the 3rd and 4th. Too little too late but his passing and ability to get in the paint was reminiscent of last April.

[Illmatic21]

In that second half he was basically Westbrook with better court vision. That was superstar level talent.

The problem was that it took him an entire half to realize that he needed to play that way. Wall just doesn't understand the mental aspect of the game very well. He played against the SF version of himself today in Josh Smith.

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

Wall killed us with shots early in the clock starting midway through the first. I
The ball had been moving... Then we got into 10 minutes of F you I'm gonna get my shots up.

[W. Unseld]

Wall played better in the 2nd half but I'm not willing to go anywhere near superstar level he still took & shot some dumb me-first shots early in the clock though you could argue he was trying to establish himself as a threat; you can't really argue that both Bynum and 37 year old Billups were getting penetration on him rather easily to free up their teammates all game. It's also tough to argue that he shouldn't be able to get his jumper off easily against 37 year old Chauncey and 5'11" Bynum.

[Illmatic21]

He was getting into the paint at will and making plays, very few PGs have the ability to do what he did. I'm not saying he played like a superstar tonight, I'm saying that he displayed superstar level talent for a stretch of the game. Considering that he played like a scrub in the preseason and showed us nothing, that was an encouraging sign.

The only thing holding him back is what's between his ears.

[JonathanJoseph]

The only thing holding him back is what's between his ears.

Right, but that ain't a skill you can work on or a muscle you can grow. It's a fatal flaw for a PG.

The Curse of Les Boulez.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Michael Carter Williams might be better than expected, even better than John Wall.

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[JonathanJoseph]

Wall made more money by staying with basketball, but the right move for him was to be a CB in the NFL. He would have been unbelievable at that.

[W. Unseld]

I'd like to convert Booker to TE. Maybe RG3 can run the point?

Not kidding about booker though, with the height, the ridiculous straight line speed & a little bulk he could be a terror at TE or outside linebacker.

[Upper Decker]

Wall was dominate before he had his back spasms yesterday. EG's job depends on how quickly he recovers from this. According to Michael Lee he's still in a lot of pain today. If it takes him a week to fully recover the Wiz will be 0-5 and staring down a chamber of 0-8.