Wall helps Wizards win opener

John Wall showed glimpses of why the Washington Wizards made him the No. 1 overall pick in last month’s draft as he had 24 points and eight assists in his professional debut, an 84-79 win over the Golden State Warriors in the third game of Day 3 of the Vegas Summer League at Cox Pavilion.
Reggie Williams, the former two-time national scoring leader at VMI, continued his impressive summer league with 34 points for Golden State.
JaVale McGee, a former UNR star, added 21points and 13 assists for Washington.

Wall-to-wall analysis

Every second of John Wall’s career from this point forward will be analyzed, so we may as well start now.
The top pick in last month’s draft looked very worthy of the lofty status in spurts on Sunday night.
Wall converted several 3-point plays by abusing inferior defenders, drawing contact and finishing in the lane.
He also appears to have formed a solid rapport with former UNR center JaVale McGee. Wall found him for several easy dunks throughout the game.
There were of course some negatives.
Wall was a bit too hyped for his professional debut and committed three turnovers very early in the game. His first shot was also badly rejected.
Wall also capped off a drive to the basket by standing and posing with his biceps flexed. I’m all for a good celebration or taunt, but he had just scored on Ben Woodside.
If you don’t remember, he’s the little guard from North Dakota State who once scored 60 points in a game against Stephen F. Austin. Woodside is a great story, but he had trouble defending guys in the Summit League. Wall is going to have to do it against better competition before he can start posing.
Overall, the numbers looked great.
Wall finished with 24 points and eight assists, but turned the ball over eight times.

Carrying on

John Wall was called for two palming violations in the game.
It’s possible he wasn’t called for two all year at Kentucky.
After the first one, Wall could be heard asking the baseline official away from the ball about the call.
“What did he call?” the point guard asked.
When he got the answer his eyes got wide and he shook his head.
Welcome to the league, rookie.

Sold out

Cox Pavilion was officially sold out for the John Wall debut.
The box office stopped selling tickets well before tip-off and some people had to be turned away at the door.
Summer league officials were obviously pleased with the turnout.
One representative made sure to walk up and down press row and announce several times that people were being turned away.
Maybe that’s why they kept the game here instead of moving it to the Thomas & Mack.
Announcing people were turned away from a venue of 3,000 sounds more impressive than 5,000 showing up in an 18,000 seat arena.

Role Models

There are several reasons to look admirably at the Maloof brothers.
The group owns one of the most popular resorts in Las Vegas and an NBA team.
They also appear to be genuinely nice, fun-loving people.
But if you didn’t look up to them before, you should have a look at the group they are traveling in today.
A group of four beautiful young ladies accompanied the brothers into the arena and joined them in courtside seats near midcourt to watch the debut of John Wall.
As hyped as the crowd was to see Wall, nearly every male in the building was distracted for about 30 seconds as the group found their way to their seats.

Confusion

Washington put Sun Yue in the game late in the third quarter.
Yue is a former second-round pick of the Lakers and has a championship ring. He wears simply “Sun“ on the back of his jersey..
His inclusion in the game had to be confusing for many of the fans in the building who seemed to think the earth revolved around John Wall.