No one in the NBA is carrying as big a load as Wizards' John Wall
On Monday, the NBA announced that Washington Wizards point guard John Wall was December's Eastern Conference Player of the Month. His numbers, no doubt, were more than valid. In 16 games, the two-time All-Star averaged 22.6 points, 11.7 assists, 4.8 rebounds and 2.25 steals per game.
Compared to November, Wall's field-goal percentage leapt from 36.9 to 46.0 percent, and his three-point percentage went from 26.7 to 37.7 percent. These are major improvements, and according to NBA.com, Wall's per-game numbers hadn't been seen in quite some time, either:
He is the first player to average at least 22.0 points, 11.0 assists, 4.0 rebounds and 2.0 steals in a month since Chris Paul in April 2009. Wall scored 20 or more points 11 times, his career high for a month, and recorded 10 games with at least 20 points and 10 assists, the most in team history for a month. The guard also became the first player to post three straight games with at least 26 points, 12 assists and five rebounds since Dwyane Wade in November 2006.
All this is obviously very impressive. The 25-year-old began the season slow but has caught on as an intriguing dark-horse MVP candidate (who has a zero percent chance of actually winning the award).
But what makes all this especially remarkable is the fact that Wall had just about no help along the way. Washington's injury history has been well documented in this space and everywhere else. Alan Anderson, Bradley Beal, Nene, Otto Porter, Drew Gooden, Gary Neal and DeJuan Blair have all missed time with various injuries. These players range from a rising All-Star to a seldom-seen reserve, but all can be useful when healthy.
As a result, the Wizards are 15-17, dead last in the Southeast Division with below-average output on both sides of the ball. But, when talking about this team, forget about preseason expectations and just assess the reality of what they have to work with.
Look around the league and take note of every other legitimate MVP candidate: Steph Curry, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Russell Westbrook, Draymond Green, Kevin Durant, etc. All those players have at least one teammate who's talented enough to carry the load by himself for entire nights at a time. Washington's second-leading scorer in December was Marcin Gortat. Its third-leading scorer was Ramon Sessions.
In the middle of December, head coach Randy Wittman was forced to throw out a starting lineup of Wall, Garrett Temple, Kelly Oubre Jr. (who just turned 20 a few weeks ago, by the way), Jared Dudley and Gortat for five straight games. Look at that freaking lineup!
Somehow, the Wizards won four of the five. How? Well, their best player rose to the occasion, averaging 19.6 points (on 40 percent three-point shooting) and 13.8 assists per game. That's pretty great.
For the month, the Wizards outscored opponents by 3.3 points per 100 possessions with Wall on the floor, and were annihilated by 13.3 points per 100 possessions when he sat. Washington's defense was swiss cheese in the 165 minutes he didn't play, allowing an unspeakably terrible 115.9 points per 100 possessions.
He's the only player on the team to log at least 1,000 minutes this season, and the only Wizard to appear in every game. If you think they're bad now, try and wrap your brain around a universe in which Washington doesn't have Wall dictating their offense and crowding the opposition's lead ball-handler every night. Where they're stripped of the basic-arithmetic-easy buckets he gets in transition, and the wide-open corner threes he provides with pin-point pick-and-roll passing.
Their banged-up roster is no better than the Philadelphia 76ers, and it almost certainly has less talent than the Brooklyn Nets or Los Angeles Lakers. Wall is a cement tent pole holding everything together, and his contributions go beyond a simple Player of the Month trophy. This guy is suddenly having the year many thought he would, but the supporting cast he was supposed to have isn't there to ride with him.
Now picture the Wizards once everybody else is healthy. If Wall somehow maintains his surreal brilliance for the next few months, zero teams will want to face them in the postseason.
