Washington Wizards hold the No. 4 seed at the All Star break
54 games have come and gone here in 2014-2015 NBA regular season, and the Washington Wizards have won 33 of them. Their 33-21 record is the best that they have had at the all star break in eight years. However, they were 17 games over .500 at one point, but suffered a bad losing streak following that.
The Wizards currently hold the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference, just one game behind the No. 3 seed Chicago Bulls. What has been the key to the Wizards success this year? Well, besides their stacked roster, two words can pretty much hold the load of the responsibility for this great season that Washington has put forth.
Those two words are John Wall. The fifth-year point guard out of Kentucky has proved that when you look for the pass before you look for the points, good things will come. He is only averaging 17.4 points per game, which is nothing special at all, but he holds career-highs in a number of other stats.
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He has dished out 10.1 assists per game, which is not only a career-high for him, but it also leads the entire league in assists-per-contest. He is also tied for seventh in the league in steals with 1.9 per game, and is top ten in rebounding point guards. His 46% shooting from the field is two percentages higher than his previous career-high. He has also shot 31% from three point range and has started every single game this season.
The impressive performance that Wall displayed earned him a spot in the starting lineup for the Eastern Conference All-Stars. He lead all guards in the East in votes, and has earned the first All-Star start of his career. However, one man can not run the whole show.
Big men Nene and Marcin Gortat have helped give the Wizards extra possessions, while posing as a force to be wrecked with in the paint. Veteran Rasual Butler has come out of no where and put in some huge minutes coming off the bench, averaging 8.8 points and 2.7 rebounds per game while receiving 21.1 minutes per competition.
This Wizards roster is loaded with talent across the board, and credit should be handed to every one of these players. They have all played well and have been huge factors in this impressive season that they have had.
After making the playoffs and winning four out of five against the Bulls in the first round last season, this team has put themselves on the map. They still need to improve on some aspects of their game, particularly when it comes to consistently beating some of the tougher teams in the NBA.
However, nobody’s perfect, and everyone has their flaws. The Wizards will make their mistakes, and they will learn from them, because they are a young yet wise group of players.