John Wall On The 2012 Wizards: ‘It Was Tough Because You Had Guys Like Nick And JaVale’
SHOTS. FIRED. From Michael Lee at the Washington Post, John Wall elaborates:
"For some guys, it was contract year, wasn’t serious with the basketball as I think they should’ve been and with them being traded to veteran teams, it helped them," John Wall said. "We didn’t have any veterans to get on them, they was the veterans. Now they are with veteran teams doing better and we’re doing better."
"It was a whole totally different team and we started playing totally different, to be honest. No disrespect to any guys we had before, but everything changed. We were more serious in the locker room, more serious on the court, unselfish play, everybody played together and just wanted to win."
There’s a separate quote here where he mentions Nick Young and JaVale McGee by name:
“At times it was tough because you had guys like Nick and JaVale; they wanted the ball a lot and took a lot of shots. It’s kind of tough to find what kind of team it was with them ...We had a lot of jokes and stuff going around the locker room, but [now] the energy is more serious, everybody is being on time, taking things more serious, being professional about everything. We just interacting more as a team.”
And speaking as a fan who lived through the past two years, he’s totally right. Change was long overdue for everyone involved, and now that he’s somewhere that actually makes sense, I’ll be rooting like hell for Nick Young this spring.
But after another miserable Wizards season, it’s pretty great that someone from the team actually went on record calling those guys out for being a complete embarrassment while they were here. Just on principle. And it’s even better that it’s Wall, the one player we were worried about all along. Now? The franchise player said what every Wizards fan has been thinking for the past three years, and we can all (finally) move on.
(Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)
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