Wizards Grades

[hands11]

John Wall - C-. Frankly, he was disappointing. Statistically, he was no better than last year and he didn't even have a stretch of dominance like we saw in March of 2013. He showed some marginal improvement on his jumper and my gut feel is that he has cut back a little on the head-scratching turnovers and long 2's early in the shot clock. He had a weak performance in the playoffs.

You know he was selected as an all-star this year, right? Did any other first time all-stars merit a C- in your grading scheme? He also got his team to the second round of the playoffs. Had the Wizards lost to Chicago, would Wall have been given a D?

Had he gotten the Wizards past Indiana, or at least won game 6, would the minus have been removed from the C?

EDIT: One A, 4 Bs, and the rest Cs, Ds or Fs. If I had seen those grades independent of knowing the team and the result, I'd guess they didn't come close to sniffing the playoffs as a group. Yet they made it to the second round with subpar performances across the board, apparently.

I think this team has the talent to win 50 games and make it to the ECF. If Nene had performed better we would have gotten to the ECF. If Gooden and Miller had replaced Ves and Maynor from the beginning of the season we might have at least sniffed 50 wins.

I'm still puzzled as to why Nene struggled so much offensively against West after dominating Noah, allegedly a superior defensive player, in the previous round. Nene outmatched Noah physically and not West, I guess. But West clearly won that matchup by a lot and is the primary reason we didn't advance against the Pacers. I don't think Wall or Beal or Ariza could have played much better than they did. Maybe Gortat could have played better, but he wasn't why we lost game 6.

Indy eventually spread them out and West get smoking hot from outside. Nene was not quick enough to close out on him.

And they ran that over and over and over. Nene was always late to get there and West has a decently quick release.

Noah can make some buckets from outside but he is not D West. Noah is scrappy, long and nimble. West is a seasoned vet, stronger and a better shooter. And Indy had P George and Hibbert started playing better. They are just a bigger team.

And all that said, had the WIzards had more experience down the stretch and the refs didn't outright blow chunks, they would still be playing in the ECF vs MIA and I fully expect they would have won at least 2.

Team Grade A

You go from 29 win to what they did and you get an A. No two ways around it.

[hands11]

I just think we have a fundamental disagreement on the way we are approaching the grading system. Clearly, Wall is one of the teams best players, perhaps their best player; I never said otherwise. But that doesn't mean he deserves an A+. A player can still be very good but not get a good grade, because they didn't meet expectations.

Do you honestly believe Wall was much better this year than last year?

Absolutely.

Like you said, it starts with your metrics and in my view, yours are off.

Walls #1 goals/job was to

1 generate wins. They went from 29 wins to 2nd round 2 wins in playoffs
2 to grow into being the true leader of this team. He made great strides there. This year, be because that.
3 run the team and control pace. He made vast improvements in that, though it took all year to get there
4 improve this outside shot. Specially his 3 ball. He did that.
5 learn the PnR game with a PnR big. And with no camp to do it. All in live action. Make teammates effective.

Wall has said this multiple times in many interviews. The only thing that matters in the end for a PG that is a leader of a team is Ws. That is how you are judged. Individual stats mean nothing if you aren't winning.

Wall is a pure PG. Face of the franchise. He has a lot of his shoulders. If you are just looking at eFG and such as your metrics, I think you are missing the boat. Not saying those things aren't interesting to look at, but they would be more missing the forest for the trees. Walls main focus is running the team, making the players around him better, and winning. He had to learn Gortats PnR which took a lot but he learned quickly and got better over the year. He had to balance in Beal growing and handing the ball more and how to play when that is happening both mentally and physically. TA would not have had a great season without Wall feeding him. He worked a lot on learning when to shoot and when not to. Less hero ball moments. Its a process. He was adjusting his game.

What Wall did this year was a huge step for him because of the list of 1-5. Its the important foundation that needed to get laid out for future team growth. Those are the really important things. The other stuff like getting his FTA up, FT% up, improving his floater, learning to balance better when to finish and when to kick out, those are easier things for him to get better at once that other stuff is behind him, and I think some of that took a dip because he was spending a lot of brain cycles trying to focus on those other 5 things. Which was the right thing for him to do. Its about priorities.

So 1-5 being the important metric for him. He deserves and A

Now if you consider that, specially the team winning so much more and then start looking at his individual stats, I think he still gets an A because most of his stat stayed steady while the team improved that much. And he improved his 3 ball from .267 on 1 attempt per 36 to .351 on 3.7 attempts. Thats huge for him and the team. And there is room for him and the team to grow because his FTA dropped from FTr .416 to .295 when his first three years he averaged .423. So once he gets more comfortable with 1-5, he can dust that off as he learns how to integrate and balance that part of his game in with a total team winning concept.

The last 3 years his .eFG has gone from .423, to .449 to .473 and TS from .502 to .521 to .524

With his improved 3 ball and his FTr .110 below his career norm, he has eFG upside baked in the cake for next year. With his aver FTr his TS probably would be been closer to .540

So his individual stats look good as well. He did dish out 8.8 assists/36. His TOV was 16.3 which is good for a PG assisting that much. And lets not forget about his defensive focus improvement this year.

To wrap this up. Wins were Walls and the teams main goal. Growing into the team leader with vets on the team was major growth and its what the team needed him to get better at first. Getting them to be a winning team that makes the playoffs and advances. Pace. Hitting the 3 ball. Learning PnR. Team defense.

He did all that. If you don't give him a A, the only other grade I can think of that makes sense is an A+

Its just a matter of focusing on the proper metrics for a PG like Wall and what the team needed to do this year.

[Zonkerbl]

It's hard to evaluate Wall because where he really has a chance to be elite is on defense and all the really good metrics are offensive ones. Wall struggled defensively all year long, with occasional moments of "getting it," more than last year. And then in the playoffs I feel like he was locked in defensively the whole time, although neither Hinrich nor Hill were particularly challenging for him defensively.

[dckingsfan]

I look forward to the ESPN rankings next year on Wall... it will be interesting to see where they have them on their list.

[dckingsfan]

He definitely played more year over year - playing all year long is an improvement. Small improvements on the offensive end, small step back on the defensive end. Overall, not a huge jump.

Code: Select all

Season   Age   Tm    Lg    Pos   G   MP
2010-11   20   WAS   NBA   PG   69   2606
2011-12   21   WAS   NBA   PG   66   2386
2012-13   22   WAS   NBA   PG   49   1602
2013-14   23   WAS   NBA   PG   82   2980


Offensively (statistically) he improved marginally - not dramatically

Code: Select all

Season    PER    TS%     eFG%    FTr     3PAr    ORB%  AST%   TOV%   USG%   ORtg
2010-11   15.8   0.494   0.427   0.404   0.118   1.5   36     18.6   23.8   100
2011-12   17.7   0.502   0.424   0.45    0.047   2.2   36.9   19.2   24.9   100
2012-13   20.8   0.521   0.449   0.416   0.061   2.4   43.9   15.3   29.3   105
2013-14   19.5   0.524   0.473   0.295   0.23    1.5   40.5   16.3   27.4   106


Defensively and overall, not so much

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Season   STL%   DRB%   BLK%  DRtg  WS/48
2010-11   2.4   12.8   1     110   0.041
2011-12   2.1   12     1.8   107   0.071
2012-13   2.1   11.2   1.8   103   0.134
2013-14   2.6   11.7   1.1   104   0.128


So, statistically it is hard to give him a grade of A - if A = improvement. If A = making the payoffs and staying healthy - then yes, an A.