Wall retires! The final chapter of the Violent Stream defender is coming?

"Retirement but never stop."

This is a few short words posted by John Wall on his social account, officially ending his NBA career.

For this No. 1 pick, Wall has basically not seen any news worth paying attention to in the past five years. His latest NBA game was on January 13, 2023. Looking back at his entire career, his highest honor is just three teams at one time. This seems not a player of all his high level.

But it is undeniable that when he played for the Wizards, he definitely deserves the position of the dominant position of the Eastern Conference. He has been All-Star for five consecutive years and was voted as the All-Star starter in 2015. His average game data at the peak of his career was also the top point guard level with 20 points and 10 assists. He is the first in the two rankings of assists and steals in the history of the Wizards.

It is no exaggeration to say that even if he has not been able to step on the finals stage, Wall has basically established his position in the history of the Wizards in his nine years, and he can even stand firm in the position of the first point guard in the history of the Wizards without any surprise. Although his career was bumpy and wandering, Wall's final performance has not disappointed the Wizards since joining the team as the No. 1 pick in 2010.

But unfortunately, the story later did take a little bit of a sudden turn. Maybe just like some players, there is always a city that belongs to him. After Wall was given up by the Wizards due to injury, even though the Rockets and the Clippers had anticipated him, Wall seemed to be in trouble, and was missing due to injury, and it was difficult for him to have a highlight on the field performance, but he was finally given up by the team.

For Wall's sad retirement, or in other words, the embarrassing situation that no one cares about in the past two years, compared to the worrying health after serious injury, it is more obvious that with the change of modern basketball trends, for Wall, such an explosive guard, if you want to gain a foothold in the league in the future, you may have to face more and more tests and difficulties.

We returned to the 2004-05 season, when the Wizards completed a deal without warning, and switched from the Mavericks to Jamison; partnered with the Wizards' original double guards Arenas and Larry Hughes, the team formed a new three-tier framework, which helped the Wizards to rush to the middle of the playoffs from the record in the second half of the league the previous year.

Although Hughes moved to the Cavaliers in the summer of 2005 just one season later, the Wizards also changed to Caron Butler again to create a new three-mistress combination. These two sets of Big Three lineups have also become the key to the Wizards' four consecutive years of playoffs. It was not until Arenas was suspended due to injury and off-court events, which caused the Wizards to fall out of the playoffs, and this brilliant moment ended briefly.

Due to Arenas' out-of-control actions, the Wizards decided to end this era with him as the core. Before the 2010 trading deadline, the Wizards sent Jamison and Caron Butler away in succession, and the team embarked on a reconstruction journey again. In March after the transaction, the Wizards suffered 16 consecutive losses in one fell swoop, and did not defeat the Hornets until the last day of March, avoiding the embarrassing record of losing all in a single month.

After playing the cards, the Wizards successfully won the No. 1 pick in 2010 and selected the No. 1 pick at the time, John Wall. At that time, although Wall and Arenas who stayed in the team seemed to have a slightly conflicting position, after the previous farce, Arenas had been abandoned by the Wizards outside the future blueprint. Finally, Arenas was sent away shortly after the start of the season, and Wall officially took over the team.

Although he took over the head master control task during his rookie time and the team's lineup was obvious, Wall's performance in the rookie season was once a hit and down, and he also lost to Griffin, the No. 1 pick who was reimbursed for the previous year's season, judging from the Wizards lineup at that time, Wall was still a well-deserved Wizards young master.

And the next story is a new page of the Wizards. Wall is making steady progress year by year. His partner Tanhualang Bill led the team forward. In 2013, he changed to Gotat and became the most stable inside partner in the Wizards' double-gun era. This team rose again, defeated the Bulls in the first round of the 2014 playoffs and fell at the feet of the then leader of the Eastern Conference Pacers.

For Wall, he is still a little immature in the playoffs and has not been able to make a big shot like Ross of the same type, but at least he has established himself as the team's ace and has jumped to the ranks of Eastern Conference star guards.

Combined with Wall and Bill's partner, the two have never been considered to be the top duo in the league. They only refer to the Wizards' trough before the two joined the team and the results they later, and the friendship between the two and the absolute trust given by the team. It can be seen that from the team's senior management to the fans, the emotional expectations for the duo at that time.

Contacting with the chaos in the end stage of the Wizards Three Musketeers, the team started from reconstruction to returning to the playoffs, Wall quickly accumulated data in this very short period of time. With almost no top point guards in the team's history, he quickly became the top candidate for multiple data.

Judging from personal data and team performance, it is no exaggeration to put Wall in the position of the Wizards' soul.

In addition to the data, although many fans still criticized him for being a Wizards, he did accumulate a lot of praise for himself. Even Gott, who has always been ruthless to others, once gave him enough respect for Wall's strict self-requirement. In this process from being in trouble to returning to the playoffs, Wall not only played highlights on the court, but also cried after the game because the young fans he had come into contact with lost to the disease. From the performance of the stadium and community emotions, Wall has completely conquered Washington fans in terms of his performance and community emotions..

However, an Achilles tendon injury finally stopped this dream, including the knee injury that began to bother him in the 2017-18 season. Wall was injured twice in three years, and another accident occurred during the recovery of the Achilles tendon injury. The Wizards finally realized the reality. They could not move forward with Wall in their hands and made up their minds to wave goodbye to the era of double guns.

In December 2020, at the point where the epidemic disrupted the world, the Wizards and the Rockets completed the transaction and took over the triple-double machine Westbrook, which had gradually entered the second half of his career, bid farewell to the Kentucky left-hander who led the team to revive.

Looking back at the current node, Wall's career highlights basically came to an end when he left the Wizards. From the moment he left Washington in 2022, Wall is destined to not receive any core-level treatment in the next days. Even if he plays well in the future, he will eventually be just a surprise lucky bag that other teams treat as a lottery.

As one of the representative players of the new era guards around 2010, after the appearance of Westbrook, Ross, Irving, Lillard and the epoch-level Curry in the NBA, the period, entered a period of golden point guards. Although organizational point guards such as Nash are still popular, they gradually withdrew from the mainstream stage. On the contrary, this group of scoring point guards with the ability to score points gradually led the team to rise.

Although the traditional shooting guards who are in the scoring task can still survive the team, in most cases, after the team's point guards can score independently, the league teams began to arrange more puzzle players with defense as the base of the shooting guard position.

Compared with that, Wall's offensive scores are not as outstanding as Westbrook, Curry, Lillard and others. The biggest difference is that he can basically contribute nearly 10 assists per game. Because of this advantage, he has become the most obvious one among the defenders in the new era who retains the organizational attributes.

It's just that all of this began to have a crisis after a serious injury, and even directly lost the team's trust. Taking Westbrook, Ross and Wall as cases, they have faced doubts in their careers to a greater or lesser extent on outside projection. Especially when the two top shooters, Curry and Lillard, this group of violent point guards has almost never felt at ease with their projections throughout their careers.

For Wall, the best shooting efficiency in his career was in the 2017-18 season, with three-point shooting percentage rising to 37.1%, but it was only one year, and most of the time he was at a questioned level.

When the projection that is least likely to be affected by injuries does not have the advantage, explosive physical fitness has become the key link that will decline most due to injuries. In contrast, Westbrook survived his career after meniscus injuries with amazing physical talent, while Rose was mostly just a supporting role in the team in the later stages of his career because of various injuries to meniscus and ligaments. As for Wall, who is of the same type but has a slightly poor talent and physical fitness and is at the same time, he is naturally bound to get the biggest doubts and the least chance.

Combining the career trajectories of the above three violent guards, under the current basketball system, explosive guards seem to be not the mainstream idea, but as long as you can prove that you can maintain the speed advantage for many years, you will naturally gain a place.

is just in addition to speed. Since modern basketball has higher and higher requirements for space, you must try to reduce the shortcomings to stay on the court for a longer time, so that you will not be targeted by your opponent as a loophole. The importance of projection is becoming more and more obvious. In this case, when speed players suffer from major injuries, they will naturally become the target that many teams are unwilling to try when the outside line is obvious.

The next best case is probably Morant. In terms of speed, explosiveness and physical talent, Morant is undoubtedly the best in the point guard line today. He has indeed made a big splash with talent, but his three-point shooting percentage has only 31.6% so far in his career, and this data is even worse than Wall. He has faced tests in the playoff field many times because of his lack of outside lines. At present, Morant has not been able to deliver a worthy answer in the shooting link.

Fortunately, he has not affected his physical fitness due to any major injury, but his violent play has always made people worry about the risk of injury, and the future test will eventually come one day.

Back to Wall's story, in fact, before the news of his retirement was announced, what we know is that Wall has been insisting on finding opportunities to return to the league, but perhaps it was because he never got the opportunity after leaving the Wizards, and Ross' retirement last year, which finally made Wall realize the reality.

Of course, retirement is not the end of the world, it is just the more comprehensive understanding of the current self of these players. It’s not that they have never had glorious past, but at this moment, instead of waiting for an NBA opportunity, it’s better to take the next step in life. The same is true for what he said in his retirement declaration that “never stops”. Although he retired, Wall will not stop, but his next journey is not in the NBA.