Wall’s Passion Starting to Show Again

After a generally slow start to his sophomore season, the Wizards’ 2010 number-one draft pick John Wall is starting to show that he is not willing to just sit back and take loss after loss.

Wall, like any other superstar (and yes, I do consider John Wall to be a superstar in the NBA), has had his share of extremely slow games in the past couple of weeks. His most recent poor outing came on February 1 versus the Orlando Magic where he had a dismal 2 points and could not buy a foul call.

For a while, I had John Wall off of my radar as there were plenty of other distractions (criticisms of Blatche, Young, Lewis and McGee—take your pick). The guy’s a superstar, he should be averaging at least 16 points a game. Maybe the hype was gone. Maybe I was getting too used to the unbelievable speed and agility of the young point guard. Maybe I was just tired of John Wall on a losing team.

But with Rashard Lewis and Andray Blatche sitting out with injuries, I’ve decided to hop back on the John Wall train. And here’s why--

On Wednesday night versus the Knicks, John Wall had the tough task of going up against the “came out of nowhere” sensation Jeremy Lin. For once, John Wall was not the point guard who the spotlight was on in a matchup. From his facial expressions down to his posterizing dunk over Lin, it was evident that Wall was not ready to give up that spotlight.

With their stats almost even and Wall taking the lead in the points category, I still think John Wall showed more heart and passion than any member of either team. He knew the pressure was on him. He declared during the Toronto game: “This is MY town!”.

He’s dead right. This is HIS town for the taking. With his increase in scoring lately and increased effort and passion, it might be his WINNING town before long.