Unfortunately, it wasn’t unusual that John Wall didn’t play on Tuesday vs. the Los Angeles Lakers, sitting out for the tenth time in the first 23 games of his NBA career, this time with right knee tendonitis. Only a week ago, Wall went for 22 points, 14 assists and three blocks against the Lakers at Staples Center in one of the best performances of his young career.
(Andray Blatche is also expected to be out after having his swollen left knee drained on Monday, but for our purposes here, the topic is Wall…)
What was different was Wizards head coach Flip Saunders making the call at morning shoot-around rather than holding out hope that the rookie point guard might be ready later in the day. When Wall was pulled from the lineup in the minutes prior to tipoff at Sacramento last week, the Wizards were noticeably rattled and went on to one of their worst losses of the year, a 116-91 blowout defeat to one of the worst teams in the NBA.
“I think it’s been unfair for the preparation of the other players and everybody where we go into a game not knowing, is he going to play or not going to play?” said Saunders. “We’re going to try to make those decisions earlier in the day as much as we can.”
But despite Wall’s increasingly injury-mired record, Saunders isn’t prepared to rest him for an extended period, going on the advice of the team doctors that Wall could wake up any day and be ready to go even if he’s facing the long-term prospect of a nagging knee issue that troubled him as early as back in July during Las Vegas Summer League.
“I don’t think, with his situation, having tendonitis, that he’s ever going to be pain free from that,” said Saunders. “So I think what we’re going to do is we’re going to monitor it. That’s the approach we’re taking, but the reason we say day-to-day is because these things, when you go through them, all of a sudden you might wake up the next day and they might be good to go. That’s why we’re handling it that way.”
For his part, Wall said last weekend that he’s had no issues with how the team has handled his various injuries, a list that also includes a sprained left foot and a bruised left knee.
“I think they doing a good job,” said Wall, who is averaging 16.7 points, 8.9 assists and 2.3 steals per game. “They leave it up to me. If I feel like I’m healthy enough to play, I’ll play. If I don’t feel like I can go, they let me take my break. I’m making sure I come in and get extra treatment. They’re not pushing me to get back, but they want to know if I can go or if I can’t go.”
Getting ribbed by his head coach certainly doesn’t help the healing process.
“I told him, in the first 20 games, you’ve missed more games than John Stockton missed in 20 years,” said Saunders. “He’s frustrated. We just got to make sure that we get it right. We get him healthy, get him right, we get it where it’s manageable, that he can play and play at the high level he needs to play at. There’s no question that when he’s not physically right, he doesn’t play at the same level. If he can’t play with the same intensity, enthusiasm and aggression, he’s not the player that John Wall is. We’re trying to get him where he feels comfortable with his body and is over the frustration.”
Lakers star Kobe Bryant also took a shot when asked if he had advice for the Reebok-sponsored Wall.
“Buy Nikes.”
