Washington Wizards’ Wall Still Not Getting Recognition He Deserves

Nowadays, some old-school NBA fans believe that the league was better during their time, when the likes of Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon were able to dominate. To quote the great DJ Khaled, the league has changed a lot. Big men no longer rely on back-to-basket play and point guards aren’t solely there to distribute the ball.

The most successful teams in the NBA play up-tempo basketball while employing some sort of small-ball technique.

The Miami Heat and Golden State Warriors helped kick-start a massive change that has resulted in a style of play that is a lot more fun and skilled than the play that occurred decades ago.

Big man aren’t confined to their space inside. Players like Anthony Davis and Karl-Anthony Towns are capable of spacing the floor, creating for themselves and they seem to be doing pretty well defensively as well. Other bigs that are mainly inside scorers, like DeMarcus Cousins, have also added perimeter shooting to their arsenal.

During all of the changes that have occurred over the past several years, the most drastic has been at point guard.

There’s an idea that point guards should be distributors – players whose purpose is to create for their teammates. When shoot-first point guards first arrived, they were immediately met with criticism. As I’ve already mentioned, the league has changed. The top point guards in the NBA could be considered shoot-first guards.

The depth at the point guard position – to put it bluntly – is ridiculous.

It seems like every team in the NBA has their point guard for the future. Besides the New York Knicks and Utah Jazz, every team in the league has a point guard who’s capable of leading their respective team.

For someone like John Wall, who’s been a top guard for quite some time, there is no such thing as a day off. He’s met by an opposing star virtually every night he steps on the court. Players like Jeff Teague and Mike Conley fly under the radar, but they are more than capable of cracking the All-Star team.

Wall, for the first time in his career, is putting up over 20 points and 10 assists per game.

Five or so years ago, Wall would have been considered for the Most Valuable Player Award, especially if the Washington Wizards were atop the Eastern Conference.

As of today, you can ask anyone on the street if they know who John Wall is and there’s a solid chance they won’t recognize the name.

Wall has averaged over 22 points and 12 assists per game during the Wizards’ five game winning streak, yet he’s gotten hardly any recognition.

Washington needs to do a better job of marketing Wall, but he’s not alone in this conversation.

There are plenty of guards in the NBA that haven’t gotten the recognition they deserve.

Chris Paul, who’s consistently been a top 10 player in the NBA, has been forgotten about.

We’re currently in the golden age of point guards and two players have led the way, and ultimately overshadowed all of their peers: Russell Westbrook and Stephen Curry.

Both Westbrook and Curry should be considered the two top candidates for MVP, with Curry having the slight edge because of his team’s historical run.

On Tuesday night, Westbrook recorded his third consecutive triple double and tallied his 15th of the season. Over his past five contests, Westbrook has averaged a triple double with 19 points, 11 rebounds and 12 assists. The numbers he’s currently putting up are from Mars and there’s no one in the league that could even come close to matching it.

Curry, on the other hand, has become the face of the NBA overnight.

I can’t do his shooting justice in words, so I won’t even attempt to. The reigning MVP is averaging over 30 points per game on 50 percent shooting from the field, 45 percent from three and over 90 from the line. He’s also from a different planet.

And then we have John Wall.

Wall is stuck in a league that’s ridiculously talented and he will probably never get the recognition he deserves. There are three tiers of point guards in the NBA. The first tier is occupied by just Westbrook and Curry. The second tier is occupied by Wall, Paul, Kyle Lowry and Damian Lillard. The other tiers have plenty of great point guards – like Kyrie Irving, for instance – but don’t even crack the second.

Wall will continue to be our little secret. You will rarely see him on television unless you’re watching him play for the Washington Wizards. It would be nice to see Wall get the recognition he deserves, but the league is completely owned by the aforementioned point guards. For now, Wall will have to continue being underrated.