When the Wizards won the first overall pick for the draft that is taking place this Thursday, they were overrun with John Wall mania (as they should be).  Now, John Wall is going to be the number one pick on Thursday, no doubt about it (they didn’t even work out Evan Turner) so the question becomes can the two play together?

I have only seen this really talked about at length in two places.  Kyle Weidie of TruthAboutIt.Net thinks they can play together.  Meanwhile, Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroxysm thinks they can’t.  Me?  Well, I think they can play together and can be very successful doing it.

Before we get down to looking at some game tape, let’s look at some numbers.  82Games.com is a fantastic statistical site, and maybe my favorite aspect of the site is they give you the top 20 most used lineups for whatever team you want.  Looking at the lineups for the Wizards, one lineup in particular caught my eye.  That one was the most successful lineup (in terms of +/-) with Arenas in it:

It wasn’t when they paired Gilbert Arenas with a defensive minded two-guard in DeShawn Stevenson, or when Gilbert Arenas played along side a pure point guard in Randy Foye that the Wizards were most successful.  No, it is when the Wizards paired him with another combo guard in Nick Young when they seemed to play really well.

Now, let’s get to what in my opinion is the big question concerning John Wall and Gilbert Arenas playing together.  Who is going to be the primary ball handler.  Early on, I think it is going to be Gilbert Arenas.  The reason being is that Gilbert Arenas is at his best when he is coming off the screen and roll.  What makes Arenas so successful in the PNR situations is that he has the ability to both get to the rim, and hit the jumper if teams play off of him:

Where Arenas seems to run into trouble with the PNR is when teams pack in the defense on him and drop a number of defenders as he attacks the rim.

Here, as Arenas drives the Bucks put four defenders in the paint ready to defend, forcing Gilbert Arenas to force a pass.  Just the presence of John Wall on the wing off the ball resolves that issues.  Most defenders would be afraid to leave Wall to help on any Arenas penetration, and if they do John Wall makes the catch on the wing with the options of either taking the jumper or attacking the basket.

John Wall isn’t going to be the number one draft pick to have the Wizards exclusively use him on the wing.  I see the Wizards also using Wall to handle the basketball some of the time both when Arenas is out of the game, and even when they are playing together.  I think that when Arenas is off the ball, you are going to be seeing the Wizards do something that they didn’t do much off, or had much success with, and that is move Arenas off the ball with cuts and by setting screens for him (Arenas was 8-31 in those play types combined according to MySynergySports).

The reason I think putting Arenas on the move would be successful is because it forces the defense to know where he is at all times.  Let’s say Arenas cuts backdoor while John Wall is bringing the basketball up.  You know at least three defenders are going to have to focus on Arenas (if they don’t Wall has the ability to hit Arenas on the move), and that frees up the lane for John Wall.  Flip Saunders has a huge playbook with a ton of sets, I think Saunders can get real creative when moving Arenas off of the basketball.

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In the end, I think that John Wall and Gilbert Arenas can be successful because they both do a lot of things very well.  This allows them to basically interchange guard responsibilities from possession to possession.   This is going to be hell for defenses to try to gameplan and stop, especially with a coach like Flip Saunders who has an ability to draw stuff up to take advantage of their skill-sets.