John Wall selected to fourth consecutive All-Star Game

John Wall’s end came last season after 15 points and 13 assists in Los Angeles. By the time the Washington Wizards made it back to the District, Wall’s right knee was puffy and rigid. Three days later, Wall’s knee still was not cooperating and he sat out against the Brooklyn Nets despite Washington having a distant shot at making the playoffs. He would not play again that season.

In the past, Wall had re-entered a playoff series with a broken hand. He had faced other ailments from the bruising he receives when driving through the lane, but remained on the floor. The knees, though, finally chopped him down and led to two offseason surgeries, one on each side.

The pain is gone now. Memories of being an upper-tier athlete too aching to dunk at times seem distant when Wall darts through the lane then uses his left hand to jam this season. The refreshed knees have helped lead to the best season of his career, one filled with career-highs in field goal percentage, points per game and steals. His assist total is a touch short of a career-best.

Those numbers were validated Thursday when Wall was selected as an Eastern Conference reserve for the Feb. 19 All-Star Game in New Orleans. Wall becomes just the fifth player in the Wizards organization to make at least four All-Star Game appearances. The others are Walt Bellamy, Gus Johnson, Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes.

When Wall spoke with reporters Thursday afternoon, he said he had not yet heard confirmation that he would be going to the game. To leave him out of the game would have been a gross oversight by the coaches who always begin their gameplan against Washington with an edict to stop him.

In a way, the knee surgeries have put Wall in an enviable time machine. He’s cheating the typical human conundrum of growing wiser while the body breaks down. His rise in offense is reflected by career-highs in offensive rating and player efficiency rating. Reflecting the recoiled spring in his legs, and the spacing offered by 3-point shooting teammates, Wall is taking 34.9 percent of his shots at the rim this season. That’s his most since 2012, when he was a jet-fueled 21 year old.

“The whole season and everything I’m doing is basically because my knee are feeling a lot better and I’m healthy and I’m able to put in all the extra work I want to put in,” Wall said.

Wall has spent extra time in the training room, which has its door just a few feet from his corner locker. This season, he uses the cold tub with frequency, like he has done in the past. He also goes through dry needling, which is as enjoyable as it sounds. Dry needling is a ramped up version of acupuncture. A needle is thrust into a muscle in order to make it contract. The intended result is loosening and relaxation from the jabbing. For further help, Wall has added a stretching routine and squats with a specific machine to his leg maintenance routine.

That he is smiling in late January as an all-star is somewhat of a surprise. Wall was initially taken aback by how long doctors told him his recovery from knee surgery would take. Wizards coach Scott Brooks didn’t put out a public timetable. Wall feared he would not be ready by the beginning of the season (he was). He also had an ominous projection to deal with.

“I really wasn’t supposed to start playing back-to-backs until January,” Wall said Thursday.

That could have sunk the team. Washington started the season 2-8 with Wall playing most of the games, but not the first two sets of back-to-back games. The third game of the season, he sat in street clothes and watched the Wizards lose by two points in Orlando. A thought went through his head as he watched Washington’s halftime lead dwindle: I could play the fourth quarter. A week later, he sat again during a loss in Chicago. That was the end of him not playing the second of back-to-back games.

His success since has again sent him to all-star weekend as the Wizards’ lone representative in the game. Once again, Bradley Beal will not be going despite an uptick in production. Otto Porter may participate in the 3-point contest, but he won’t be part of the marquee event of the weekend. It will just be Wall, the way it has been for the last four seasons.

Wall cracked the top five in player and media voting, but not in the more heavily weighted fan voting. The league used a new voting system this season, counting fan votes as 50 percent of the total, and media and player voting as 25 percent. Wall was fourth among Eastern Conference guards in the players’ voting and fifth in the media voting, which left his selection to the coaches.

There is one downside for Wall. The game was moved from Charlotte, North Carolina to New Orleans. Wall was born in Raleigh, about three hours east, and had hoped to start in the game that was expected draw a litany of family and friends. The league decided to move the game out of North Carolina because of a controversial bill, HB2 or the “bathroom bill”, passed there.

No matter the location, Wall is glad to be back. He often tracks how people around the league view his standing among the other elite players. Again this season, the feelings of the coaches he faces are clear. That’s why he is off to New Orleans.