John Wall: The Eastern Conference’s Top Point Guard

John Wall has long been a player with potential to become one of the best point guards in the entire NBA. He’s always been a reliable jump shot away from propelling himself into the top tier of NBA guards and his 2017 season was his best campaign yet.

Wall averaged 23.1 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 10.7 assists per game this season and led the Washington Wizards to the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. Wall was second in the league in assist per game, trailing only James Harden, who averaged 11.2 assists per game. Combining his blazing fast speed and uncanny ability to make the right pass, Wall is a matchup nightmare for his defenders. While he did shoot slightly worse from 3 this season (32.7 percent) compared to last (35.1 percent), his effective field goal percentage did go up from 46.7 percent to 48.2 percent. But when we compare him to the rest of the points guard in the Eastern Conference, how does Wall stack up?

There’s a general consensus that the five best point guards in the East are John Wall, Kyrie Irving, Isaiah Thomas, Kyle Lowry, and Kemba Walker, in some order. All five had exceptional seasons, but Wall’s stands out for more reasons other than points per game.

What John Wall lacks in his jump shot, he makes up with his superior playmaking ability. He impacts the game in ways that the other guards cannot. Wall is the tallest, strongest, and fastest among his Eastern Conference peers. Intangibles that don’t show up in the boxscore, but contribute to Wall’s style of play each and every possession.

The biggest knock for all five of these players would be that they are not known as reliable one-on-one defenders, and that includes Wall. Isaiah Thomas can’t guard anyone over six-feet tall, and Kyrie Irving, Kyle Lowry, and Kemba Walker are all quick enough to be solid individual defenders, but they lack the defensive awareness when it comes to working around screens. They aren’t strong enough to guard forwards on switches, they’re often beat on backdoor cuts, they aren’t great at rotating on defense, and the list seemingly goes on and on.

The one attribute Wall has to his advantage is his size and speed which allows him to intercept passing lanes or rip the ball straight out his opponent’s arms. Wall and Draymond Green shared the title for most steals per game this season at 2.0 per game. While Wall isn’t an elite on-ball defender, he’s a pesky one that can exploit the dribbler at any time with quick and active hands and he is far and above the best defender of the five. He’s also the only one of the five who can fly high enough to execute chase down blocks such as this one.

Wall was seventh in the league in minutes played per game at 36.4—Lowry was the only East point guard to average more. Wall also had a 23.2 PER (Player Efficiency Rating), higher than any East point guard besides Isaiah Thomas. Along with those marks, he finished 10th in Usage Rate amongst all NBA players. He bears the load of being the Wizards best player and thrives in the position. Considering the Wizards weak bench unit and the fact that Brandon Jennings was Wall’s backup, he was required to get things done himself if his team wanted to pull out a victory. If John Wall can get some help off the bench, his future in Washington should only continue to prosper.

To make up for his spotty jumper, John Wall has become an elite rim attacker. Only Isaiah Thomas shot more free throws than Wall and none of the five made more two-point field goals than Wall. In fact, 37.9 percent of Wall’s shots this season came within 0-3 feet where he connected on 59.1 percent of them. While Lowry and Irving both shot slightly better percentages than Wall from that range, Irving only attempted the shot 26.4 percent of the time while Lowry didn’t even crack 20 percent.

Wall thrives when he’s penetrating the defense, and when he’s not creating a shot for himself, he does an even better job of creating for others.

Wall is an unbelievably skilled passer. He’s flashy at times, but he uses the extra flare to his advantage which helps him confuse defenders and create passes that otherwise wouldn’t be possible if they were executed in a much more simple and, less-sexy manner.

What puts Wall above every other point guard in the East is what he managed to accomplish in the playoffs. Wall turned it up to another level once the playoffs started and he was far and above the best of the group (yes, I know Kyrie is still in the playoffs, but Wall has still outperformed him up until this point). With no Kemba Walker as his team did not make it to the playoffs, Wall led the group in playoff points (27.2), assists (10.3), rebounds (3.7), steals (1.7) , blocks (1.2), and—perhaps the most surprising stat—three-point percentage (34.4). His poor play in Game 7 against the Celtics, which ultimately led to the Wizards elimination from the playoffs, left a sour taste in fan’s mouths, but his performances prior to that were the only reason they had reached that position in the first place. Seven playoff games with at least 25 points, two 40-point games, and seven double-doubles is nothing short of impressive for a 26-year old point guard.

John Wall may not be a lockdown defender, but he is the best two-way point guard among the five and can create plays that the others physically aren’t capable of. His 6’5” frame is already a load to slow down for smaller guards and his lightning fast speed only makes him that much more potent. Younger than both Isaiah Thomas and Kyle Lowry, Wall has plenty of time to improve his jump shot and morph himself into an unguardable force that can beat his defender in every aspect of the game. However, even without that, he may very well be the best point guard in the League.