John Wall meant something different to Wizards fans

USA Today

a day ago

Good morning, and welcome back to The Morning Win. I want to use this morning's newsletter to talk about John Wall, who announced his retirement from the NBA on Tuesday. Because as a local to the Washington, D.C., area, it can be hard for me to gauge how much our local stars resonate with the rest of the sports world. Particularly stars of the Wizards, who only seem to come up in national discussions as the butt of a joke.
Don't get me wrong, Wall transcended that a bit. I think NBA fans all over have a great deal of appreciation for him. But around here, he meant something different. He was the homegrown star who wanted to be here, and the city embraced him for that. So if you see what you consider to be a disproportionate amount of love coming from a certain corner of the internet for someone who only made one All-NBA team and played just 74 games after his age-28 season, all I can tell you is you just had to be there.
You had to be there in 2010 when the Wizards landed their first No. 1 pick since the failed Kwame Brown experiment nine years earlier, restoring hope to a franchise and fanbase completely broken by the Gilbert Arenas gun incident. You had to be there when that pick broke out the Dougie for his home debut... then dropped 29 points, 13 assists and nine steals to beat the 76ers in OT, letting fans know we were on our way.
You had to be there two years later when the Wizards drafted Bradley Beal to pair with Wall and form one of the NBA's promising young backcourts. You had to be there for their playoff debut in 2014, when the Wizards beat the Bulls in five games. Then a year later, when they swept the Raptors, and a series later when Paul Pierce called game against the Hawks -- who the Wizards would have beat if Wall didn't break his hand. Or two years after that, when Wall hit the shot in Game 6.
As modest as that period was -- no 50-win seasons or a conference finals appearance -- relative to what other franchises have done, it was our golden age of Wizards basketball. And Wall was the catalyst of it all. That's without speaking to his connection to the city, where Wall's name became synonymous with Rosebar but he was also incredibly charitable with his time and resources in local communities. Even after he was sidelined by the tragic Achilles injury that derailed his career, Wall's foundation raised more than $550 million for Ward 8 residents during the pandemic.
That's why fans were so broken when the team traded him to the Houston Rockets in 2020, and they continued to root for him as he tried to work his way back into All-Star form, and applaud him now in retirement. We remember the 2014 dunk contest, the spinning layups, the blow-bys after luring his defender to sleep, the pick and rolls with Marcin Gortat, the passes, the speed -- oh boy, the speed.
Simply put, Wall was one of the best point guards of the 2010s, and he's the GOAT Wizard. But if you weren't there, you probably won't understand.
The Colts are really starting Daniel Jones
I didn't think the Indianapolis Colts would actually bring themselves to do it, but I couldn't have been more wrong. They actually named Daniel Jones their Week 1 starting quarterback over Anthony Richardson.
FTW's Christian D'Andrea perfectly explained why this move is unsurprising but could completely backfire on the Colts:
"Jones brings a higher floor to the Colts offense than Richardson. He has more playoff wins than Tua Tagovailoa thanks to the 2022 season that saw the New York Giants establish a run-heavy attack that asked Jones to throw the third-shortest average pass distance in the NFL. That worked until it didn't. When head coach Brian Daboll had to turn up the downfield throws as a weakened rushing game left his offense off-schedule Jones' interception rate rose from a league-best 1.1 percent in 2022 to 2.6 over the last two seasons.
That means he's bringing a lower ceiling than Richardson, who plays football like someone dropped a jar of Superballs on a concrete floor. Richardson's offense was predicated on more downfield throws than anyone else in the league. His 12.2 yards per air target were nearly three full yards deeper than second-place Trevor Lawrence on the 2024 NFL leaderboard. When things go right, Richardson is capable of doing things maybe three or four of his peers can do on a given play."
What Christian had to say is worth a read, and here's Cory Woodroof on why the Colts need to trade Richardson.
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