A Wizards Christmas Carol
John Wall returns to DC and receives his flowers as a legend of the city
At the 7:32 mark of the first quarter in the Wizards 114-107 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers, John Wall hit one of his patented step back mid-range jumpers and turned to the Capital One arena crowd and yelled, “This still my city.”
In Wall’s first game in front of D.C. fans since he was traded back in December of 2020, even he had to snap back to the harsh reality of the fact that he no longer plays for the team that drafted him with the number one overall pick more than a decade ago. “Damn I might feel like I’m still in a Wizards jersey now,” Wall told a packed room of reporters congregated in the Wizards’ away team press staging area. The poise with which Wall was able to reflect upon his true ‘homecoming’ moment was just a microcosm of the person and player that Washingtonians have come to revere.
Wall spent his adolescence in North Carolina, grew to national prominence in Lexington, Kentucky and was raised to be a man in Washington D.C.
The late Frances Pulley, Wall’s mother, who was a staple among the hallways of Capital One Arena guided him every step of that path and he couldn’t help but to visualize her as he played in the place he called home for so many years.
"Looked over at the seats where my mom used to be sitting at and the other four seats where my family used to sit at and just try to fantasize and be in that moment for a minute. Just being here,” Wall said. The tone in which Wall spoke was that of a man who has clearly reflected on what the Washington D.C. chapter of his life meant to him and he admitted that it made him emotional. “It was a lot of chills, tried not to cry, hold back a lot of emotions and kind of be in the moment of the game and try to win.”
Returning to D.C. and receiving an overwhelming display of love and adoration could have easily motivated Wall to try and force the issue with his own individual statistics, but in his first start of the season for the Clippers, Wall continues to show that he’s capable of contributing to winning basketball. The Wizards on the other hand, have now lost nine of their last 10 games to fall to 11-16 as their season spirals out of control and their goal of making the playoffs becomes more fleeting.
As Wall daydreams in real time about still donning the Washington Wizards jersey while he helps another team destroy the franchise's chances of breaking their 40-plus year curse of failing to win at least 50 games or appearing in a conference finals, it seems as if D.C. received a visit from the ‘Ghost of Wizards Present.’
Wall arrived at the arena on the second bus from the Clippers hotel and was one of the last Clippers players to warm up before the start of the contest. After he finished an intense on-court session, he put in just as much effort and energy off the court to show his appreciation for Wizards fans by spending an extended period of time to literally sign every single autograph that was asked of him.
Wall’s last active game as a Wizard was December 26, 2018 and no one could have predicted at the time that it would be nearly four years to the day that he would have an opportunity to delight Wizards fans with his on court magic again. Wall’s presence haunted the Wizards in his return because for as much as he gave the team on the court, that energy was ultimately not reciprocated from the organization off the court over the years.
Wall’s exit from the team could be described as unceremonious at best, and a lot of that has to do with the unstable relationship that Wizards owner Ted Leonsis has had with the franchises two biggest stars in the 25-year history of Washington Wizards basketball. Just as D.C. was visited by the ‘Ghost of Wizards Past’ in Gilbert Arenas last month, Leonsis was once again conspicuously absent from the festivities to honor the two players who helped lay the foundation for what is now valued as a $2.5 billion business venture under his Monumental Sports and Entertainment (MSE) conglomerate.
The Wizards just recently received that valuation after Leonsis completed a minority stake sale of less than 10% of MSE to former eBay President Jeff Skoll, who invested nearly $300 million into Leonsis’ company. Monumental is turning into a monopoly for the sports and entertainment industry in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) as the company owns The Washington Wizards, the Washington Capitals, the Washington Mystics, Capital One Arena, the Capital City Go-Go, and most recently a 67% majority stake in the regional television network NBC Sports Washington that broadcasts both Wizards and Washington Capitals games in a market share that covers a large portion of the DMV.
Where Leonsis is strategic and highly successful as a businessman, he has proven to be less shrewd in managing his public perception as a caring owner. On one hand, it probably worked out better that the focus and attention could be given to Arenas and Wall as they received their much deserved and overdo flowers from the team, but on the other hand Leonsis not being able to visibly and tangibly show his appreciation to two of the biggest stars in franchise history shows the detached nature of his tenure as owner of the Wizards.
It’s hard to believe that after all these years that Leonsis still doesn’t get the concept that perception matters, but as long as the team continues to soar in value off the court, Leonsis has little incentive to change or care how he is perceived. It doesn’t make Leonsis a bad person and as someone who has had a few interactions with him in real life and even more correspondence, I believe that Ted Leonsis is very much a good man with even better principles on how he can positively contribute to the Washington D.C. community. Leonsis’ blind spots in creating a winning culture on the court doesn’t make him a bad owner or even a facsimile for Ebenezer Scrooge, but just as the spirits in Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” serve as a warning of the consequences of actions, the Wizards ‘homecoming’ visits from Arenas and Wall can serve as a cautionary tale of how things from the past may influence the future.
The future of the Wizards starts with Bradley Beal, who by all accounts has a much better relationship with Ted Leonsis than either Wall or Arenas ever had, which is why Leonsis had no problem whatsoever committing more than $250 million to Beal over the next five years to help keep the Wizards trajectory of earning more money. As someone who has been critical of Beal’s contract in the past, not because of him receiving life changing money, but purely from a team building aspect. I have to admit when my complaints fall somewhere between misguided or flat out wrong.
My thesis has always been that the Wizards made a mistake by not trading Brad and allowing someone else to pay him that supermax contract because ultimately Wizards team President Tommy Sheppard has never been able to lay out a clear vision in which the Wizards can actually win.
Run it up Brad, because MSE certainly is running up the revenue off the court and they can’t do it without having a centerpiece and marketable star who has improved his on-court game every season and also shown the utmost sense of concern and passion for the Washington D.C. community. Brad and John are similar in that way and it was great to see how much their relationship has grown over the years as they warmly embraced multiple times. Beal was not only present for the height of the John Wall Wizards era, he was an active participant in the on-court success that helped Wall land his own supermax contract extension back in 2017. Beal also has been able to see how the Wizards failed both him and John in the past and himself now by not being able to surround their star players with a supporting cast that is good enough to win a lot of basketball games. As the ‘Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come,’ Beal still has the opportunities in front of him to prove he can be a winner, but he can’t do it by himself.
Where the Wizards continue to grow as a conglomerate off the court they continue to sell the fact that they are trying to win on the court. That sales pitch sounds nice in theory, but the franchises actions in team building prove to be more of the same and just further extends the disconnect between the fans and ownership, but more importantly the disconnect between winning and losing.
The Wizards are on pace to make more money than ever before despite ranking dead last in the percentage of filling up their arena in the NBA and have the sixth worst record in the Association. The Wizards have strategically planted flags in multiple international markets such as Japan and Israel, which helps supplement value for their franchise despite not being as popular with the actual community in which the team represents.
Ted Leonsis still has time to wake up and change his public perception just as Ebenezer Scrooge did from the visits of spirit guides at the end of “A Christmas Carol.” Hopefully he can take the lessons learned from mistakes in the past to help in the healing of the scars of this franchise. There is obviously a long way to go as the team seems to be in more disarray on the court, but chaos has been one of the most consistent things this franchise has in its history.
John Wall has gone through his own journey of healing with how his time in Washington ended, and he demonstrated just how much he’s been able to forgive by how he answered a direct question on if he felt closure on his situation with the Wizards now that he received his flowers from the fans. “Nah… I’m not saying goodbye, you never know what the future can hold. It’s no closure for me. It's just another step in the ground where I got the opportunity to see the people that love me and seen me grow from a 19-year old little boy to a grown man.”
The genuine love and connection that John Wall has with the DMV is something every single professional athlete can only aspire to reach when they connect with the people they represent. This is in fact Wall’s city and no length of time nor distance can ever change what he means to the people who live here and as Christmas approaches the Wizards, Wizards fans, and Washington D.C. can be thankful for the blessing of the gift of Johnathan Hildred Wall Jr.
.(Photo credit: All-Pro Reels)