John Wall made his debut last night at the Las Vegas Summer League in front of a sold out crowd at the gym on UNLV’s campus.  Despite the nerves (and there seemed to be a good amount of them), John Wall had a fairly impressive start to his professional career.  Wall put up 24 points and 8 assists, but more importantly looked really good when moving around the court for the first time with other professionals.  To breakdown Wall’s debut, I am going to look at both the good and the bad of his performance.

The Good

The Jump Shot

Wall was impressive enough to draw comparisons from Derrick Rose from many people on hand.  I held off from making the comparison in college, but it was obvious watching the game last night that John Wall does have a lot of Derrick Rose in him, from the physical skills to the style of play.  However, there is one big difference between the two of them, John Wall has a pro-ready mid-range jump shot that he looks comfortable taking off the dribble.

Wall’s form when taking his jumper off the dribble is real solid.  He always seems to be taking off using the right amount of steps with a solid load up dribble (A dribble that takes him from attacking the rim to rising up for a jumper), and he also seems comfortable doing when attacking either side.  The only thing that bugs me with his form is that he has a tendency to kick is leg too far out from time to time (as in the top clip).  When you do that, you don’t really land on balance and it tends to have you miss your shot.  I’d like to see him do what he does in the bottom clip (landing on both feet) on every single jump shot attempt.

That mid-range jumper is so important for a guy who likes to attack (like John Wall) because it forces the defense to respect the jumper, and when that happens you get one of two things.  Driving lanes open up:

Here, the help defender pressures up on Wall, who hesitates as if he is going to take the jumper.  Instead, he keeps his dribble going and gets to the rim.

The second thing that opens up is passing lanes:

Here, the defense attacks Wall to try and get him to pick up his dribble.  This means the help defender has his head turned to his man and that opens up the backdoor cut.

The Passing Ability

In that final clip, you were able to get a brief look at John Wall’s passing ability.  Wall’s vision in both the open court and in the half court was really impressive yesterday:

Speed

John Wall’s speed with the basketball puts so much pressure on the defense, and this is where the Derrick Rose in his game really starts to come out:

In all three of these clips, John Wall’s speed allows him to close the gap between him and his defender very quickly. Often this results with the defender backpedaling as he tries to stop Wall’s dribble. This often results in a foul.

The pressure on the defense doesn’t just help Wall get to the line (or get easy buckets). It also frees up his teammates:

Here with Wall attacking the basket, he sucks in the defense. This time, they are able to stop him, but the defense’s determination to stop Wall frees up a driving lane for the trailing big man.

The Bad

The Turnovers

John Wall had 8 turnovers last night, but it was pretty obvious a good amount of them were due to John Wall’s nervousness.  The arena was sold out to watch HIM play, that is a ton of pressure, and a few times you could see Wall trying to make that perfect pass to get the crowd going.  I expect to see Wall’s turnover numbers decline throughout summer league, and turnovers shouldn’t be a problem with him.

Off The Ball Defense

On defense, John Wall seems to struggle when covering his man off the basketball.  He tends to lose sight of him man and floats a bit too:

Here, John Wall is in help position on the weak side.  However, he starts watching the ball a little too much, and that allows the man he is covering to cut right in front of his face and get open in the lane.  Despite being open, his man doesn’t get the ball.

In this clip, Wall’s man makes the pass and John Wall turns his back to his man.  There is a huge cutting lane right there, but Wall’s man doesn’t take advantage of this.

If Wall’s off the ball defense continues to work like this, you will start seeing teams game planning putting the man he is covering on the weakside and just letting him cut (or designing plays for the ballhandler – Wall’s man – to give and go).

Pick & Roll Offense

John Wall didn’t run the pick and roll a ton in college, and in fact @hawksvoice tweeted me that he only ran in 9.7% of the time (Derrick Rose, who everyone is comparing him to ran in 32.2% of the time last year in the NBA).  If yesterday was any indication, Wall is going to be running the pick and roll a ton this year, but he doesn’t look too comfortable running it right now.  The biggest problem is that Wall leaves way too much space between himself and the screener when he comes off the pick:

When you come off the screen with the basketball you want to rub shoulders with the screener, and if you can’t to that you want to try and not leave a ton of room between you and the screener so you can force the defender to go under the screen (or get caught in the screen trying to go over it).  Every single time John Wall came off of a screen, he left way too much space between him and the screener.  The result?  Turnovers:

Here, Wall allows too much space between the screener and himself and his defender is able to go over the screen. Wall is now forced to try and create separation, and he carries the basketball. If Wall comes off the screen correctly, then he doesn’t have a defender attached to his hip and he doesn’t carry the basketball.

Once again Wall leaves way too much space between himself and the screener. To make up for it, the screener moves so he can make contact with the man he is trying to screen. John Wall is supposed to bring his man to the screener, the screener isn’t supposed to have to move to make contact.

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With all of this being said, Wall’s debut was really impressive. Wizards’ fans shouldn’t be too worried about the bad stuff that I highlighted in the post, because they are easy things to correct. Now, if they keep happening throughout summer league and the early portion of the regular season, then you worry. But I think more time on defense and more repetitions running the pick and roll will make him more comfortable in these situations.