Don't Forget About John Wall

The moral merits of super-teams aside, there may be no more contentious an area of NBA discourse in which to wade right now than the ranking of the league's top point guards. Even if there is generally considered to be a consensus top three (Stephen Curry, Chris Paul, and Russell Westbrook, in some order), fans of certain players in the next tier rarely let you get away with saying anything about any those three without chiming in that their guy should be included in the discussion, too. Rarely does a Steph, CP, or Russ-related tweet get fired off without a Cleveland Cavaliers fans responding, "Kyrie better," or a Portland Blazers fan simply replying, "Dame."

I'm not here to tell you that John Wall is better than Steph or Chris or Russ or Kyrie or Dame or Kyle Lowry or Mike Conley or anyone else, because it doesn't really matter whether he is or not. What matters is that the Washington Wizards point guard and former No. 1 overall NBA Draft pick was firmly part of the discussion as recently as the start of last season, and it seems like he's increasingly been excluded from that group of late. And that's pretty crazy. So basically, I'm just here to make sure you don't forget about John Wall, because John Wall is really, really good and John Wall is really, really fun.

Wall doesn't have a feathery jumper like some of his other point-guard peers—shooting is his biggest weakness. But what he lacks in stretch, he makes up for in speed, size, and the innate ability to exploit the angles his size and speed create.

Westbrook gets a lot of publicity as the fastest player in the league going end to end with the ball in his hands, but Wall might actually be faster. If he's not, it's damn close. What makes Wall's speed such a special weapon these days is how he modulates it. After studying at the feet of veteran teammates like Andre Miller and Paul Pierce over the past few years, Wall has learned when to take his foot off the throttle and when to really jam it down. He moves the defense not just by speeding them up but by hesitating or waiting just a beat longer than one normally might, so that defenders move just where he wants them to. It helps that, even at full speed, he can recognize when a defender is leaning even a smidge too far and make them pay with a perfectly threaded pinpoint pass.

Here's John Wall giving Pascal Siakam an early lesson in NBA help defense 101. — Mike Prada (@MikePradaSBN)October 23, 2016

Where it all really comes together for Wall is in transition, where he is just a pure delight to watch. He puts defenders on their heels by attacking the rim with abandon that is not quite reckless, and has an array of finishes there that can best be described as acrobathletic.

But it's not just the finishing ability that makes watching Wall-led breaks fun; in fact, the finishing is secondary to the passing. Washington's wings know that he loves nothing more than to press into the paint, draw multiple defenders, and zip the ball out to a shooter waiting in the corner. So more often than not when filling their lanes on the break, they fan out to the side rather than sprint toward the basket.

As Bradley Beal told me back in 2014, "When you've got a point guard like John, you have to run. Whenever we have him out there, coach Witt [former Wizards coach Randy Wittman] just tells the wings to sprint to the corners. We do that, and that's where the majority of our threes come from." Markieff Morris has only been with Washington since last year's trade deadline, but he's already gotten down on this, too.

Wall finished third in the NBA in corner threes assisted last season, and that was a down year for him. He led the league in 2012, 2013, and 2014. It wouldn't be a surprise if he did so again this season.

Spotting shooters comes naturally to Wall. Over the past few years, Wall pick-and-rolls have generally ended with him driving to the basket around 10 percent of the time, taking a pull-up jumper 25 percent of the time, passing to the screener 25 percent of the time, and spotting a teammate elsewhere on the floor 40 percent of the time, per privately provided SportVU data. That's a nice balance that helps keep the defense off guard, and it's a large part of the reason he creates chances for assists so often.

Wall created an assist opportunity (defined by NBA.com as a shot that, if made, would result in an assist) every 22.3 seconds he had the ball last season, per Nylon Calculus, second to only Rajon Rondo. That number wasn't out of the ordinary for him, but rather part of a steady progression. It was 26.0 seconds in 2014-15 and 28.6 seconds the year before.

I'm not one to glorify point guard purity, but there's something about an assist explosion that's just plain fun—sometimes even more fun than a scoring outburst, depending on how the dimes are dropped. Wall has had a ton of those games. Like the other second-tier point guards, he has had his share of high-scoring games (he's gone for 30 or more 26 times, nine of which saw him get to 35 or more, and he's dropped 40 twice), but none of the others have been able to match Wall's prolific passing. Since he entered the league back in 2010, only Paul and Rondo have more ten-assist games than Wall's 188. His 17 games with 15-plus assists in that time rank fifth, behind only Rondo, Paul, Steve Nash, and (!) Jose Calderon.

Yeah, Wall's team was kind of bad last year, [Washington, D.C. Editor's Note: Last year and every year] and didn't make the playoffs. That just gives him something in common with pre-LeBron Kyrie, 2013 Dame, pre-Toronto Lowry, and KD-less Westbrook. He doesn't have Steph's trophy case, Kyrie's ring, Westbrook's scoring title or series of near-miss title shots, CP3's Point God moniker, Conley's bank account and designation as the best point guard never to be an All-Star, or even Lillard's great clutch time nickname (Lillard Time) or rap career. He hasn't had an elite running buddy like all of those guys have had, either, because Bradley Beal's stress reactions won't stop reacting to stress and keeping him off the floor.

But on the merits, Wall has a rightful place in that top NBA point guard discussion. As he attempts to get the Wizards back into the postseason this year, he'll be reminding us of that fact on a nightly basis. Do yourself a favor and tune in.

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