John Wall Appreciation Thread - Part III

[Meliorus]

In any other era Wall would be putting up MVP stats. In any other era, if Wall was putting up these stats and had a better record (let's say 2nd in the East), he would be a strong MVP candidate. Just abominations like Harden and Westbrook are setting new standards.

[dangermouse]

I look at games like that and think man, Lowry must be balling. Right?

[TGW]

Sure is nice to play with Lebron.

[payitforward]

As it currently stands, John Wall is a hipster choice for All-NBA team. I can easily see this scenario play out:
1st team: Westbrook Harden
2nd team: Curry Lowry
3rd team: IT DeRozan

Unless the Wizards somehow get at least the 4th seed by the end of the season, which will be difficult given the March/April schedule, I can see Wall getting snubbed for inferior players.

Westbrook, Harden, Curry & Lowry are all having better seasons than Wall. Isaiah Thomas is having a terrific year; not all that much to choose between him and John Wall, but I'd say Wall is having an even a little bit better season than Thomas. DeRozan's a good player, but he ain't at the level of any of those guys.

W/o looking at who else might be snubbed, your list tells me Wall should be on that 3d team.

[Meliorus]

As it currently stands, John Wall is a hipster choice for All-NBA team. I can easily see this scenario play out:
1st team: Westbrook Harden
2nd team: Curry Lowry
3rd team: IT DeRozan

Unless the Wizards somehow get at least the 4th seed by the end of the season, which will be difficult given the March/April schedule, I can see Wall getting snubbed for inferior players.

Westbrook, Harden, Curry & Lowry are all having better seasons than Wall. Isaiah Thomas is having a terrific year; not all that much to choose between him and John Wall, but I'd say Wall is having an even a little bit better season than Thomas. DeRozan's a good player, but he ain't at the level of any of those guys.

W/o looking at who else might be snubbed, your list tells me Wall should be on that 3d team.

Media members who vote All-Star starters are the same media members who vote All-NBA? Cause if they're the same, then Wall is going to have a tough time. If media members can't even figure out who the best guard in Toronto is, then I'd say they're pretty clueless.

[dobrojim]

John F. Wall doing work! I'm happy for him and it's fun to watch.

Did I mention something about being a closer. Dang. As much as the TNT guys
tried to hype the Nix, at the end of the day, all had to hail Johnny Rocket.

[tontoz]

Wall is better than Irving by a wide margin. Irvings strength is scoring but scoring difference between is pretty marginal.

Pts per 36

Irving 24.50
Wall 22.90

TS

Wall 55.1%
Irving 56.8%

Obviously Wall is decisively better at pretty much everything else.

[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

[Meliorus]

Wall is better than Irving by a wide margin. Irvings strength is scoring but scoring difference between is pretty marginal.

Pts per 36

Irving 24.50
Wall 22.90

TS

Wall 55.1%
Irving 56.8%

Obviously Wall is decisively better at pretty much everything else.

Irving has finals cred and nobody will forget it unless he plummets.

[tontoz]

Read on Twitter

This is also the healthiest Wall has been “by far,” according to the guard himself. That’s allowing him to play a two-way game that includes coast-to-coast dunks off rebounds such as the one we saw in the win against the New York Knicks on Thursday night.

I was wondering about that. He has always been willing to play hurt which has surely hurt his stats in the past.

On the other end, he’s excellent at defending his man one-on-one (0.66 points allowed per possession, fourth lowest in the NBA, on 33.3 percent shooting) and off the handoff (0.54 points allowed per possession, lowest in the NBA, on 25.8 percent shooting). With Wall in the game, the Wizards allow 2.4 fewer points per 100 possessions than they do when he is on the bench, and overall, the team’s net rating rises from minus-9.3 to plus-4.3 when he is on the court.

IMO the only guard in the East that is having a better season than Wall is Lowry. It is pretty easy to argue Wall has been better than all the other east guards.

[Meliorus]

Read on Twitter

This is also the healthiest Wall has been “by far,” according to the guard himself. That’s allowing him to play a two-way game that includes coast-to-coast dunks off rebounds such as the one we saw in the win against the New York Knicks on Thursday night.

I was wondering about that. He has always been willing to play hurt which has surely hurt his stats in the past.

On the other end, he’s excellent at defending his man one-on-one (0.66 points allowed per possession, fourth lowest in the NBA, on 33.3 percent shooting) and off the handoff (0.54 points allowed per possession, lowest in the NBA, on 25.8 percent shooting). With Wall in the game, the Wizards allow 2.4 fewer points per 100 possessions than they do when he is on the bench, and overall, the team’s net rating rises from minus-9.3 to plus-4.3 when he is on the court.

IMO the only guard in the East that is having a better season than Wall is Lowry. It is pretty easy to argue Wall has been better than all the other east guards.

It's very easy to argue that Wall is the 2nd best guard in the East, but what does that mean?? There's still Westbrook, Harden, Curry, CP3, it's just hard for Wall to be one of the top 10 players in the league.

This off-season, Wall needs to do whatever workout plan Kemba has been doing the past couple summers. The man came into the NBA just as bad a shooter as Wall, and now he is lock-down 41% 3 point shooter. If he can become a solid volume 3 point shooter like Harden, Wall can pump out a few MVP seasons in his prime.

[keynote]

Worth noting: the players think Wall is the fourth-best guard in the East (after Kyrie, DD, and IT); the media think he's fifth-best (after the previous three + Lowry).

The players think Kyrie is the best guard in the East. The media thinks it's IT.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/18514988/nba-all-star-2017-voting-results

Here's the full break down of votes from the players:

http://official.nba.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2017/01/2017-All-Star-Starters-Player-Voting-Results.pdf

A few observations:
1) A lot of players either voted for themselves (if that's allowed), or they didn't take it seriously. Mo Williams received a player vote. Jason Smith and Satoransky each received a vote. Kelly Oubre received *two* -- so, even if he did vote for himself, someone else voted for him too. Out west, Zaza Pachulia received 19 votes(!!); at least 18 of them were from players not from the country of Georgia. Go figure.

2) The players appear to value offense over defense. Two of the top three vote-getters in the backcourt (Kyrie, IT) are known to be defensive sieves. I understand that the fans don't care, but I'd have figured that the actual players would appreciate two-way players like Lowry and Wall more, since they'd have a better understanding on the impact of defense on winning than we do. Or, perhaps, this tells us that we as "smart" fans overvalue defense. If they've concluded that it's better to have a IT/Kyrie-type than, say, a Rodman/Ben Wallace-type, perhaps it shouldn't be dismissed. It's especially tough to dominate the game defensively from the backcourt (although Wall has done it a few times), whereas IT and Kyrie can get hot and easily carry a squad for a quarter.

3) Burke and Nicholson were both shut out of the voting.

[Meliorus]

Read on Twitter

They defined "clutch" as last 5 minutes with a margin of 5 points or less. Don't know what Wall should do in crunch-time, but I hate those fadeaway long twos. But hey, he's pretty good at it!

[Dat2U]

Read on Twitter

This is also the healthiest Wall has been “by far,” according to the guard himself. That’s allowing him to play a two-way game that includes coast-to-coast dunks off rebounds such as the one we saw in the win against the New York Knicks on Thursday night.

I was wondering about that. He has always been willing to play hurt which has surely hurt his stats in the past.

On the other end, he’s excellent at defending his man one-on-one (0.66 points allowed per possession, fourth lowest in the NBA, on 33.3 percent shooting) and off the handoff (0.54 points allowed per possession, lowest in the NBA, on 25.8 percent shooting). With Wall in the game, the Wizards allow 2.4 fewer points per 100 possessions than they do when he is on the bench, and overall, the team’s net rating rises from minus-9.3 to plus-4.3 when he is on the court.

IMO the only guard in the East that is having a better season than Wall is Lowry. It is pretty easy to argue Wall has been better than all the other east guards.

John Wall is a fadeaway mid-range jumper from being elite.

Meaning if that shot wasn't a part of his arsenal, he'd be far more efficient and we'd likely have a couple of extra wins. That fade away IMO is singlehandedly holding him back because of his reliance on it. He's actually a pretty good shooter, when he goes straight up and down but far far too often he unnecessarily fades away and significantly lowers the chance of him making that jumper. I literally put my foot through the TV when he wasted the last offensive possession of the game on that shot against Detroit. It bails out the defense every single time.

[SizzlinSimms]

I love John! That is all I want to say!

[lastemp3ror]

Compared to last year, Wall is starting to shake up what the top PG rankings are in my opinion. It is still a bit early, but if he continues to play like he is, I think he is the top PG in the East.

[queridiculo]

Wall is better than Irving by a wide margin. Irvings strength is scoring but scoring difference between is pretty marginal.

Pts per 36

Irving 24.50
Wall 22.90

TS

Wall 55.1%
Irving 56.8%

Obviously Wall is decisively better at pretty much everything else.

... but Irving had that Pepsi commercial that one time, so All-Star starter.

[queridiculo]

John Wall is a fadeaway mid-range jumper from being elite.

Meaning if that shot wasn't a part of his arsenal, he'd be far more efficient and we'd likely have a couple of extra wins. That fade away IMO is singlehandedly holding him back because of his reliance on it. He's actually a pretty good shooter, when he goes straight up and down but far far too often he unnecessarily fades away and significantly lowers the chance of him making that jumper. I literally put my foot through the TV when he wasted the last offensive possession of the game on that shot against Detroit. It bails out the defense every single time.

Sadly that fade away is his goto in late shot clock situations. He also seems to set them up with a lot of side to side dribbling that doesn't get him any noticeable separation when he finally does decide to release the shot.

There's quite a few occasions where he gets his defender unbalanced enough to drive at him only to settle for a fadeaway.

His shot selection is night and day from when he started, but at times his decision making leaves a lot to be desired.

[lastemp3ror]

John Wall is a fadeaway mid-range jumper from being elite.

Meaning if that shot wasn't a part of his arsenal, he'd be far more efficient and we'd likely have a couple of extra wins. That fade away IMO is singlehandedly holding him back because of his reliance on it. He's actually a pretty good shooter, when he goes straight up and down but far far too often he unnecessarily fades away and significantly lowers the chance of him making that jumper. I literally put my foot through the TV when he wasted the last offensive possession of the game on that shot against Detroit. It bails out the defense every single time.

Sadly that fade away is his goto in late shot clock situations. He also seems to set them up with a lot of side to side dribbling that doesn't get him any noticeable separation when he finally does decide to release the shot.

There's quite a few occasions where he gets his defender unbalanced enough to drive at him only to settle for a fadeaway.

His shot selection is night and day from when he started, but at times his decision making leaves a lot to be desired.

I will first admit that I only have watched a handful of Wizards games this season. But I did watch last night where his mid-range fade away was almost unstoppable. Plus I have also noticed that John Wall's FG% has dramatically improved this year. However, his fade away and shot selection isn't good?

[queridiculo]

His shot selection has improved dramatically, and his rise in FG% reflects that, but there are still times where he bails defenses out with poor shots early or late in the shot clock.

I think Dat2U was talking about that late clock elbow fadeaway, it's a terrible shot that he doesn't make with any consistency and it needs to go.