I realized while watching
the Warriors vs Wizards game last night that I hadn’t seen the Wizards play at
all this year, a fact that had not caused me to miss a moment of sleep. I’ve
kept up with the Wizards shenanigans for the most part, from Andray Blatche complaining about his role after the team’s first game (the fact he was named
team captain still blows my mind) to Flip Saunders getting fired to Javale McGee’s constant buffoonery (John Wall’s body language in that clip says it
all), but I hadn’t watched them play yet. A lot of this has to do with
the fact I live on the West Coast, I work for The Man and Wizards games aren’t
on national TV very much. But I have seen a fair amount of bad teams play this
year, so it felt weird going into a game with essentially a clean slate.
Well, the Wizards were all
that could be expected, losing to my Warriors 120-100 in a game where it felt
like they were down 20 from the opening tip. Their roster is a perfect
collection of players who have no idea how to play team basketball, except for
John Wall. He stands out so clearly on the floor when he plays, not just
because he such an incredible athlete (he outran Monta Ellis down the floor a few times) but
because he seems to be the only player on that team that actually cares. He
finished the game with 20 points (7-10 FGs, 6-7 FTs), 14 assists, 6 rebounds
and only 2 turnovers. Now take those numbers with a grain of salt since the
game was a blowout and he was playing the Warriors, the 5th worst
defensive team in terms of defensive efficiency.
But those numbers did raise
his season averages to 17.6 points per game, 7.8 assists per game and 5.0
rebounds per game. Which had me thinking: how many players have averaged at
least 17 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds per game in either their rookie
season or their 2nd season?
