John Wall and that greener grass on the other side

John Wall has missed the last 10 games for the Washington Wizards after having surgery on his left knee. He has spent that time rehabbing, and watching from the bench (occasionally through ridiculous ostentatious spectacles) as his Wizards have gone 8-2, outscoring opponents by an average of 6.6 points per 100 possessions. They’ve had what equates to a top-three offense and a top-10 defense while their best player has been waiting on the bench.

Wall is smooth and explosive, an elite athlete at the point guard position and a versatile talent who undoubtedly makes his team better — irregardless of this Wizards’ Wall-less bump. He’s also 27 years old an increasingly finished product. This is, theoretically, Wall’s athletic prime. If you assume a generic curve, Wall’s athleticism declines from here, moderated, again, theoretically, by an continual increase in skill.

However, he’s not exactly riding a cresting wave of development into his prime. Wall’s shooting percentages look like a sine curve, oscillating around five-year averages of about 34 percent on 3-pointers and about 36 percent on long 2-pointers. Nothing else in his game has the appearance of a dam of skill implementation about to burst. Even assuming this current knee issue resolves itself with no lingering aftereffects, it’s reasonable to assume that John Wall is as good as he’s ever going to be.

This extended absence for Wall is wrapping his game in mylar, like a precious comic book issue or a cherished rookie card. The artifice of separation makes it more precious. We can stare at it, frozen in time, but the stasis reveals flaws. We can see the weathered edges and the frayed corners. The places where the ink has faded, reinforcing the knowledge that should we ever choose to remove the protective wrapping the value will only slowly and inexorably decline.

The Wizards are not better without John Wall, despite the small sample of evidence to the contrary. If anything, the opportunity for Bradley Beal to feature and Tomas Satoransky to flower should make the Wizards stronger in the long run. But does that strength even matter? The financial structure of this Wizards roster screams “all in for a championship.” The actual talent whispers, “we need a little bit of help please.” Wall might be the difference between an Eastern Conference Finals appearance and a first- or second-round exit; he’s not a ring-maker.

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This Wall absence should help us see the ragged holes and rough spots in his game, not because he’s not one of the best point guards in the league and not because the Wizards are better without him, but because we see him clearly without them. When he returns to the lineup Wall may be a bit worse for the wear, the Wizards will have a slightly hardened exterior and they’ll still be looking for something — a miraculous addition, a miraculous leap from Beal, Porter or Oubre, a miracle of some kind. He will be sensational. The team will be good. And somewhere else, there will be an alternate timeline where the grass is greener.