With the news that John Wall is out for 6-8 weeks, the Washington Wizards need to find a way to maintain their win percentage to keep from falling out of the playoffs.
On Tuesday, the Washington Wizards announced that John Wall would be out 6-8 weeks while he gets an arthroscopic debridement procedure done on his injured knee. It’s been well documented that Wall, who missed a couple of weeks of the season already with a bad knee, has been playing through the pain.
It appears the knee, due to the high stress of playing basketball, has gotten worse, forcing the team to no longer ignore the problem. The 6-8 weeks will finally give Wall enough time to recover properly from such an injury. Luckily the doctor who performed his double knee surgery in 2016 will be performing this one as well (the doctor also happens to be the Cavaliers head physician).
So just how bad is this for the Wizards? To answer that question, it might be best to assess how the team did when Wall missed eight games a month and a half ago. When he was out injured between Nov. 25 and Dec. 12, the Wizards went 4-4. Their plus/minus was -1.4, which is a considerable step down from their overall plus/minus of +1.6 for the season.
Essentially, the Wizards are the definition of a .500 team without John Wall. The talent behind Bradley Beal and Otto Porter Jr. won’t allow the team to fall into bottom-of-the-league territory, but the question is, with Wall out for 6-8 weeks, can the Wizards hold on for a playoff spot?
If Wall misses the average of seven weeks recovering from knee surgery, he’ll miss 20 games of the season. If the Wizards go .500 during that stretch, they’d be 37-32 and most likely stay in the playoffs. It looks like (yet again), a team only needs to stay a game or two above .500 to make the playoffs in the East.
The goal for the Wizards will be to maintain that mark while John Wall is out, which ironically, is usually the strategy when Wall is resting on the bench and the second unit is in. The Wizards would have to go 5-15 in their next 20 games to really start sweating the John Wall injury. It’s worth noting the differences in statistics during the stretch Wall was out:
Wizards statistics with John Wall inactive:
- FG percent: 44.5 percent
- 3-point percent: 33.9 percent
- Net rating: -1.3
- True Shooting: 52.9 percent
Wizards statistics with John Wall active:
- FG percent: 46.7 percent
- 3-point percent: 37.8 percent
- Net rating: +1.5
- True Shooting: 55.9 percent
The Wizards are much better in almost every category imaginable with John Wall on the court, but most of these statistical changes won’t be enough to make them go 5-15 in their next 20 games. For people who are hoping Bradley Beal can take a step up and lead this team with Wall out, think again. Beal shot a worse field goal and 3-point percentage when Wall was out, and had a plus/minus of -3.4 (as opposed to his +3.1 on the season).
The concerns for the Wizards organization are that Wall’s injury may take longer than expected, meaning he won’t be ready until the very end of the season. The other concern is that the team might drop so much that it’ll have a nightmare matchup in the first round of the playoffs. Going against the Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers or Toronto Raptors would be a tough and grueling series, and one thing Wizards fans don’t want to see is more of the same.
The team has boasted one of the more consistent starting units in the NBA. Having locked in Porter, Wall and Beal to long-term deals, this is the Wizards’ core for the future. To see them yet again leave the playoffs early would be bring up questions about whether the Wizards made the right call trading their first round draft picks for win-now players and committing all their money to three stars who can’t get them to the Eastern Conference Finals.
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It’s ironic that the Wizards’ main goal right now is to maintain their play while Wall is out, because most people watching them understand maintaining their play means losing early in the playoffs again.