Wall is one of my favorite players who is sadly going to be overlooked and forgotten by a lot of new fans.

As long as Lebron has been in the league he has been the chase down block king.

Yeah I’m looking at this comment like… that’s exactly what Shai is on the defensive end, but 80% of people call him an average defender lol

He did this thing where he’d be taking the ball up court at a jog, and catch his defender not looking and immediately hit the turbo button and just fly down the court.

Absolutely loved watching that

He was absurdly fast but what made Wade and Bron insane in transition was their finishing ability 

Wall was not an outrageous defender. He was good on ball but otherwise was not great with rotations, not very active off ball, and often chased steals and blocks which lead him out of position.

Even this list is just overrating his blocking ability. These are all guards who rarely block shots or protect the rim, so the actual in-game difference is negligible. Right now we’re praising John Wall for averaging like 0.6 blocks per game vs Magic Johnson’s 0.5 lol.

At his peak, for a year or two, Wall was a pretty good defender. Most other years he was average or even negative. And even at his peak he was never as good defensively as other two-way guards like CP3, Lowry, Conley, Holiday, etc.

Athletic guards always get overrated on defense. Every year. It happened with Wall and Westbrook and Rose in the 2010s. It happens now with Edwards. For some reason people see a guy with quick feet and explosiveness and think it translates directly to good defense.

always thought he was a 2 guard bec of the way he gets the ball. but i suppose he’s a hybrid

The Celtics offense doesn’t really have a PG, he’s been the smallest guy in our starting lineups for most of his time here

Shais a 2 just like Wade. Unless you consider him a ball dominant according PG like Rose.

You describing LeBron James. 

Much of that was true for Jordan too but that does not make him a traditional PG. SGA is more similar to Jordan and kind of a hybrid between a SG and a PG. I think that if SGA is on this list, you could also add players like Jordan.

Think Jordan has more than Wade

It’s not about comparing the playmaking of White vs SGA, it’s about comparing the playmaking and role of White vs his teammates. Maybe there was no true point guard for our team last year, but White averaged the most assists on the team. The only other point guard on the entire roster was Payton Pritchard

The difference is, Wade played during his career with starting lineups featuring Damon Jones, Jason Williams, Chalmers, Arroyo, Alston, Bibby, Dragic, Norris Cole, Rondo, MCW, Jerian Grant, etc. Who can you name as the starting 1 instead of Shai on OKC? Dort? Holmgren? Hartenstein?

TIL John Wall is only 35

Damn him playing felt like a decade ago

yeah he’s in a weird spot. he’s a genuinely great defensive guard but also arguably the 5th best defensive guard on his own team

he’s a good on-ball defender, and an elite help defender.

He would be borderline elite if he was allowed to focus exclusively on defense. Never worrying about foul trouble, saving all his energy for that side of the ball.

This would of course be very very stupid.

Shai is a much better defender than Dort.

Also you forgot to mention arguably the #1 defender of the past 15 years. Alex Caruso.

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He’s no higher than 5th, and probably like the 7th best defender on the team at this point with Dort gone. Cason, Caruso, Dub, Chet, Hart, maybe Ajay. But that’s just because we stack up All-D guys like crazy.

People might see him as a 6ft6 guard that shot midrange so automatically they went toward a shooting guard and also the fact he is the modern point guard where the offense ran through him like Harden type so that might discount him as pg even though he is listed pg

It’s incredibly ignorant…i have a hard time if they are even serious not counting SGA as a point guard.

Reddit not wanting to give any credit to SGA 

He’s a 6’6” mega scorer who just hit a career high in assists at 6.6, does that profile seem more similar to Jordan and Kobe or CP3 and Nash? You could call all of them PGs, but the taller high-scoring lead guards who have specialist guards next to them averaging a couple assists used to be called SGs. Wade fits the old school SG thing in that for some dumbass reason there was always an “actual” PG out there for the coaches to run plays with, but he’s also a ²⁸⁄₆ lead guard just like Shai and if either of them is a PG I’d say it’s the shorter one.

My point was that the distinction has become pretty meaningless and mostly a quirk of history, not that Shai doesn’t fit the modern definition of PG

He’s a Westbrook-sized guard who averages ²⁸⁄₆ just like Shai, it’s just a quirk of history that in those days you always had a “true PG” out there to run the sets. Wade’s role is basically the same as Shai’s

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Why not? He’s a combo guard. Frequently defends PGs and frequently initiates the offense. Depending on lineup, I’d call him a PG.

Yeah I don’t know why I thought that either. Probably his height and scoring first role.