At the time of the 2010 draft it was an obvious, undoubted fact that John Wall was the best player in that draft class. No one could argue that, he’s fast, he’s strong, he has great vision, he’s humble, and he was NBA ready. Everyone just knew that he would be the best player right out of that gate and he would stay the best for every second of every one of their careers.
Now we have an elephant in the room; this season there has been no practical argument that John Wall is the best rookie of that draft class. There have been three truly standout players with bright futures, 4 if you want to put John wall in that class.
Greg Monroe is the first of these standouts. He has had undoubtedly the best numbers of all the rookies from that year. He’s averaged 16.3 points and 9.9 rebounds per game. He’s scored a majority of his baskets off of post catches. He appears to be someone who can be built around, you can dump the ball off to him and tell him to score. He also inhales rebounds, while he’s no Kevin Love, teams shouldn’t anticipate easy lanes to the glass while he’s down there. His downside is he’s not a good defender, he he’s too slow to guard a forward, too small to guard a center. He ends up playing center because at least that lets him get the rebounds and there are less elite scoring centers than power forwards. Also, his scoring numbers could be deceptive. Monroe is the first scoring option on his team. They give him the ball and he gives it back if he doesn’t want it. He’s very much like Kevin Love where you can count on him for numbers, but you can’t count on him for wins. Also, if his team had another good scorer I’d wonder if he would still score so well because he doesn’t move without the ball very well.
The next is Paul George. I’m not going to lie, I didn’t even know who he was, but he has made me learn. He has been averaging 12.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1.4 steals, and 2.2 assists per game; while these numbers aren’t exactly overflowing the stat sheet you have to understand that numbers on the Pacers are harder. They have a near unstoppable scorer in Danny Granger and even he can’t score that much on this team (only 18 ppg) because they get everyone involved in the offense. Essentially the way there offense works is they move the ball around (really well) and it doesn’t stop until they find a flaw in the defense and someone capitalizes on it. The way I just described it really doesn’t give them enough credit because it is an outstanding offense, you should really watch them if you haven’t done so already this year. So anyway, in this system it’s hard to get numbers very easily. He’s the third highest scorer in this offense behind Roy Hibbert and Danny Granger. Another thing that’s impressive about him is his defense, a lot of people forget that he has really replaced Dahntay Jones (and done a better job) of defending the other teams best player, he smothers them and he’s massive (6’8). But he’s done one thing none of the other stellar members of that draft class have done which is bringing his team wins. Of course there is the con that he hasn’t necessarily brought his team those wins, the pacers are a good team, but still numbers on a good team is more impressive than putting up numbers in losses. Also there’s the issue that the offense may be creating the numbers for him, but just to make it simple, the offense itself isn’t doing all of the work for him, he goes over people, he runs ahead of people and he gets by people, just because his numbers aren’t coming from isolations doesn’t mean they are not coming from serious work.
The last of these surprises is Demarcus Cousins, everyone who has seen him play understands that he is talented, he can post you, he can handle it fairly well, he can pass, he can rebound, and he’s actually a pretty good defender although he’s not really a shot blocker. All last season and early this season he had confirmed those worries to be true. However, since the kings fired Paul Westphal and hired Keith Smart there has not been a hint of any maturity issues, Cousins has put up great numbers and I think he has been the best king. He’s done everything we had hoped he would eventually do. Since hiring smart, Cousins has only been held to less than 10 rebounds 4 times, and he’s had 15 or more rebounds 5 times. Also, the team has been playing good basketball and looking like a decent basketball team. The downside is that cousins can’t block shots and he doesn’t run the floor very well (even though that shouldn’t be too big of a deal.)
John Wall has by no means played badly. He’s averaging 15 points, 7 assists and 5 rebounds, all of those numbers are down this year except for rebounds. When a guy is on a team where he is expected to dominate the ball as much as John Wall, he’s supposed to get points, but Wall has gotten his points in extremely inefficient ways. He is shooting below %40 from the field which is the worst of the good players. His assists come solely off of being a point guard who has the ball in his hands all of the time.
So to acknowledge the elephant in the room, I’ll just say it, Wall has not been the best player form that draft class. Whether you think it’s been Cousins, Monroe, or George, it certainly hasn’t been Wall; while he still could eventually be one of the best point guards in the league, up to now he still hasn’t even passed the rest of his class.
