Since returning from a hamstring strain, and being limited by the team’s medical staff to 180 minutes total during every nine-game stretch during the season, Beal has been terrific; entering the weekend he was averaging 25.5 points in his previous 11 games, including a career-high 42 against Phoenix. He worked diligently in the offseason on his off-hand and on being more of a playmaker; it comes in fits and starts, but the Wizards do show nascent signs of being able to attack on the weakside with the ball in Beal’s hands instead of Wall’s.

And Wall is playing remarkably well for someone who had surgery on both knees in the offseason, and wasn’t cleared to play until just before the start of training camp. He’s posting career bests so far in total shooting (45 percent from the floor) and 3-point shooting (37 percent), while ranking third in the league in assists (9.6 per game). But he’s still not yet 100 percent.

“I’m close to it,” he said. "I know it’s going to take time, but I’m close to it. To be where I am and be able to play back-to-backs and be able to play the way I am right now, I’m happy for it, because I didn’t think I’d be anywhere close to this after having two surgeries over the summer. I thought I’d probably be getting into the rhythm of things now.”

Wall spent the summer in Los Angeles with Jesse Phillips, whom he’s worked with the past two summers and whom Washington hired full-time this year as a physical therapist.

“Everything I did this summer was frustrating,” Wall said, “Spending six, seven hours a day, doing the boring stuff when I couldn’t run or jump the first three, four months, was the frustrating part. I didn’t really get to do any of (on-court) stuff that until mid-August.”

If -- if -- Washington was serious about moving anyone, it should be Gortat, not Wall.

It’s not about Gortat’s numbers or play -- he’s averaging a double-double, fifth in the league in rebounds per game (11.9). Gortat is also first in the NBA, per NBA.com/Stats, in screen assists per game (6.6); he hasn’t had the dive opportunities he’s had in previous years as defenses have sought to bump his rolls to the basket. And though he hasn’t been as consistent defensively as in past seasons, he still can guard most bigs without help, as he displayed recently against DeMarcus Cousins, who needed 31 shots to score 34 points.

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But this isn’t about achievement; it’s about math.

The Wizards gave the 30-year-old Mahinmi starter’s money -- more than $16 million a year, which is more than $3 million per year than the 32-year-old Gortat is making. If Gortat is a little salty about that, and the suspicion is that he is, well, can you exactly blame him? And since no one in Washington believes Gortat and Mahinmi can play together, that means the backup center is going to make more than the starter.

With a contract averaging just more than $13 million through 2019, Gortat would be very affordable for a contending team that could use a productive, two-way big (Boston? Utah?) and which has players and picks it could package. But that’s a theoretical, and Washington obviously couldn’t pull the trigger on any deal until Mahinmi is back on the floor. But Wall thinks the Polish Hammer still has a lot to give.

“Every team meeting and stuff that we have, we tell (Gortat), you’re a big key to our team,” Wall said. “We really need you. He’s a big key to what we do. He’s a center. He’s the backbone of our defense. Offensively, he does a great job rebounding the ball and scoring for us. He understands that we need him. He’s not getting as many touches as before, but it’s different. Sometimes, the game is adjusted, and he has to be able to adjust his game to what the NBA is…some games it’s going to be different. When they play back, he’s probably not going to get as many touches as he wants.”

In the meantime, the players know they have to do better more often.

“We talk about accountability all the time,” Morris said. “At the end of the day, this is your job, and you have to come to work every day like anybody else. That’s what you’ve got to do on great teams; hold everybody accountable. And everybody has to do their job.”

Is that, I asked, your role, as a veteran, or is it Wall’s or Beal’s?

“It’s a collective,” Morris said. “We’re a relatively young team. Wall’s like, the voice, and I’m kind of like the muscle.”

Beal and Wall feel responsible for pushing each other.

“It’s kind of weird,” Beal said. “Nobody really understands it. But we do. We pull each other to the side during free throws and timeouts -- we look at each other like, okay, it’s time to pick it up. Okay, John, let’s go, get a stop, guard your guy. Or whatever it may be. We give each other hints and signals. It’s just simple eye contact with us.”

Said Wall of Beal: “He gets emotional, gets into it. He’ll let everybody talk first, and he’ll put his foot down last. He gets his point across.”

And, during the last week, the bench has shown signs of life. Oubre has begun to display the defensive chops that compelled Washington to make a Draft night trade with Atlanta, which picked Oubre for the Wizards with the 15th pick overall. Washington has been very active on defense with Oubre replacing Morris in the lineup down the stretch the last two games, able to switch just about everything.

It’s an extremely small sample size, but it has promise as a game-closing lineup.

“He has a chance to be really good, but he has to be focused every time he’s on the court,” Brooks said of Oubre. “It’s not an easy league to play well in. I tell all our guys, ‘The easiest thing in our league to do is play hard; the hardest thing is to play well.’ If you don’t have that mentality, if you can’t do the easiest thing, you’re never going to do the hardest thing…you don’t have the freedom and the luxury to wait five trips down the court, and all of a sudden (say) I’m playing in the NBA; I have to start playing. No, you’re in the NBA now, and you have to focus on what it takes to be well from the first possession on the court.”

The Wizards are fortunate they’re in the East. Despite last-second losses in Orlando, Oklahoma City and San Antonio after leading each of those games late, Washington is one modest win streak away from being back in the top eight in the conference. That would be progress of a sort for a franchise that needs all the positive vibes it can get.

“When you have an opportunity to beat those teams in the East that you’re fighting for playoff position, or who has the tiebreaker, you have to win those games,” Wall said. “You have to take more advantage of it. You can’t say ‘it’s an early start’ or anything like that. It’s time to go.”

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Longtime NBA reporter, columnist and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer David Aldridge is an analyst for TNT. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.

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