DCZards wrote:I also don't see how the Zards trade Beal...unless it's for a package they simply can't refuse. BB's overall game continues to evolve and get better, and I expect the 25 year old to be a real beast 2-3 years from now. You don't trade that kind of upside unless it's absolutely necessary.
Wall shouldn't be an impediment to Beal continuing to excel. In fact, BB should thrive playing next to Wallstar. But first Wall has to recognize that he has a great running mate in Beal and another excellent complimentary piece in OP...and adjust his play accordingly, starting with becoming a truly pass-first PG.
Wall is a pass-first PG. Of the top 25 highest usage players (Wall is 23) only Harden and Westbrook have a higher Ast%.
If you check the assist measures John is in the top tier in every meaningful category.
What he is not is an active and engaged an useful player when he is off the ball. So he dominates the ball because he doesn't do anything else. Maybe cannot do it, maybe does not know how. It's not just his iffy outside shot, it's everything else on offense: backdoor cuts, screens, offensive rebounds, decoy plays and feints. John just doesn't do it. He either has the ball or he stands around. Players like Simmons, Curry, Rondo, CP3, Patty Mills, George HIll, Lonzo, Lowry are all in the
top guards in screen assists. Wall doesn't show up til page three.
And when he has the ball he does not stay in motion, probing and circling and keeping his dribble alive in the way of a Nash or Tony Parker or Kyrie. So the team around him stays static, aside from picks and a few set plays. It's predictable. Players on court have to wait and stay passive. Otto, who does do everything, and takes advantage of whatever creases the defense gives him, is reduced to a standstill corner shooter. The team becomes predictable, the only advantage we have then is the fact that Wall IS a superior passer, and when healthy he is one of the quickest and most athletic PGs in the league.
Then too there's his passive defense, which is injury related in part, scheme in part, maybe conditioning related, but also there's some laziness in his game on this end. He can make the flash play. He can make the highlight steal or block, but there is no glory in locking up your man off ball. And he is not reading angles to prevent the pass or disrupt the opponent set plays. And he ought to rebound better and box out etc, but unless his man has the ball he's mostly waiting for someone else to get the board so he can take off in transition. And he rarely fights through a pick. Maybe that's due to injury too. When John is locked in though he is disruptive, not just steals and deflections and blocks, so I have to think some of this is conserving his energy.
Lastly, with a lazy GM and unimpressive coach, John acts as adjunct GM. His post season analysis is taken as an offseason blueprint. The team scrambles to plug in the sort of player that John says the team needs. He's often right, but still, this telegraphs to agents and other teams what we want, and raises the asking price. So our lazy GM overpays early in the free agency and calls it a summer. Goes back to 'scouting' in Italy, etc.
Also, the team does not look forward to any long range plan. The coach has no particular vision or scheme to find players that fit. Our one nod to cleverness is an intentional design flaw to lack depth. So, we win with our stars, or, when they are injured, we can collect lotto tickets. We don't develop our own talent, don't extend them early when they are reasonable, we don't use our late picks, our minor league system, and never find talent that makes up for what John doesn't do, if he is going to be the axle around which all things turn.
A visionary front office would recruit a Steve Nash and ask him to coach. Coach Ginobili. Would pull a Euro coach with a winning record to teach the team game (give David Blatt a second chance) and put savvy hardworking young talent around him to grow a team from the ground up. Would have found a Brad Stevens. Coach Bud. And would not mismanage the cap in desperation every year.
I honestly think Ernie deliberately ruined our cap with Nicholson Mahinmi etc so that the job would not look as tempting to other GMs.
So. Going forward, it's tricky to think how to improve the team with Wall as a centerpiece UNLESS we upgrade the front office. An engaged and fired up John Wall can deserve and earn that contract. Make no mistake. We win a few games a year that we have no business winning simply because Wall has the talent to overcome opposition, and is fired up to make it happen. In those games he is a destructive force at both ends of the floor.
The areas where John is flawed in his game are 100% improvable with effort. If his injury woes are cured, his conditioning and offseason regimen can be focused on being able to outrun and outwork everybody on both ends of the floor. If he had a coach from the right system (every player is a threat off the ball, every player is both decoy, threat, and glue player, motion sets up easy baskets, screens on and off the ball open opportunities to attack) then Wall could be back to being the force he is when she shows up in those giant-killer games. If John Wall let teams even think he was doing that stand around lazy thing but instead crashed backdoor he would have 6 more points a game when teams turned their head away from him and he found the seam and the alley to sprint rise and flush. Picture a two man screen game with Brad and say Troy Brown or Otto, where the ball handler passes to the pick and instead of rolling, John slices in to catch the pass and stuff it. His speed means if teams do lose him in the shuffle, he is a threat from anywhere. He just has to actually shuffle. Shuffle and hustle, John. That's all.
