Tuesday NBA Roundup: John Wall’s Career Night Can’t Mask Wizards’ Struggles

With 23.5 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter Tuesday night, John Wall strode to the free-throw line and calmly knocked down a pair of freebies—his 10th and 11th of the night. As the second one ripped through the nylon, he set a new career high in points, having torched the overmatched Orlando Magic backcourt for 52 points, four rebounds, eight assists and three steals.

He’d shot a stellar 18-of-31 from the field and 5-of-8 from downtown, and his four turnovers were reasonable given how frequently he controlled the rock.

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This was a game against a nondescript Magic outfit that was finishing a five-game trip away from the Sunshine State. It came in front of Wall’s hometown faithful at the Verizon Center. Surely he was just putting the finishing touches on a big victory that could help steer the struggling Washington Wizards back on track.

Except Washington lost, 124-116.

Frankly, the proceedings weren’t even as close as that final margin might indicate. The Wizards were badly outplayed, failing to slow down Elfrid Payton or any other member of the Orlando bench. They barely bothered to contest shots at times, looking far too disinterested for a squad that’s now won just seven games in 20 attempts.

After Wall and Bradley Beal, who finished with 19 points, Washington’s leading scorer was Markieff Morris, who dropped 10 points on 3-of-10 shooting. As a whole, the non-Wall members of the roster mustered just 64 points on 26-of-62 shooting (41.9 percent), and the point guard provided assists on eight of those buckets.

Yet again, he couldn’t get any support.

Wall is averaging 24.1 points, 4.2 rebounds, 9.8 assists and 2.1 steals on the season. He’s shooting 45.9 percent from the field, 39.4 percent from downtown and 82.3 percent at the charity stripe—all high-water marks during his NBA career.

He should be leading a playoff team, especially because the pieces—on paper, at least—seem to fit around him. Beal should be a solid complementary scorer. Otto Porter is blossoming into an all-around stud who still has time to do the little things, and Morris spaces the floor. Marcin Gortat is even an ideal pick-and-roll partner.

But nothing is working for a team that entered this contest ranked 20th in the league in offensive rating and 19th in defensive rating, per Basketball-Reference.com. Almost everyone has disappointed, as you can see from this data provided by NBA Math:

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Wall has been fantastic on offense and about average on defense, leaving Porter as the lone player contributing positively on both ends (the blue dot). Beal, Gortat, Morris and Ian Mahinmi are the only others with positive scores on either side (the red dots), and the first two have still essentially negated their strengths with their weaknesses.

Everyone else (the gray dots) has been a below-average presence on both offense and defense, leaving these Wizards with precious little depth or chemistry.

So, how do you fix this?

It’s tough to imagine the Wizards parting with their core, despite the potential chemistry issues in the backcourt. But as they continue to slip down the standings, we might start hearing rumblings about the team blowing things up by shipping Wall away to start over and land a higher pick in the stacked 2017 NBA draft.

Bill Simmons of The Ringer said as much on his podcast Nov. 30, as transcribed by the Washington Post’s Scott Allen:

They’re going to have to come to grips with whether they want to trade John Wall or not, and what they can get for him. If I’m running Washington, I would trade John Wall right now. I would just move him for picks and do a complete tankapalooza and try to rebuild and put myself in a much better spot. I think it’s going to take years to put a decent team around [him], and I think the fact that Kevin Durant didn’t even want to meet with them should’ve been a come-to-Jesus moment for that team, and apparently it wasn’t.

The other option, of course, is to try to improve around the Wall-Beal-Porter core.

But even if the Wizards can identify a specific area that A) needs improvement, B) can actually be improved and C) features potential help on the trade market, they have to make a compelling offer.

Washington doesn’t have any outstanding first-round debts, but it would be foolish to trade away a top-30 selection with the team’s current efforts looking so futile. So would dealing a youngster such as Kelly Oubre or Tomas Satoransky make enough of a difference?

Probably not, which puts the Wizards …

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