John Wall: Wizards on same level of Celtics, Raptors, 76ers

John Wall – who notices you not listing him among the NBA’s top five point guards – also sees the Celtics, Raptors and 76ers emerging as the consensus top teams in the Eastern Conference.

And that doesn’t sit quite right with the Wizards star.

Wall, via Michael Lee of Yahoo Sports:

“I feel like we’re all equal,” Wall told Yahoo Sports recently from his annual backpack giveaway at Barry Farm. “None of them won a championship. This is no knock on no other team. Don’t get me wrong. Boston is a hell of a team. Philly has great young talent with those guys [Joel] Embiid, [Ben] Simmons. And Toronto, losing DeMar [DeRozan], they still get Kawhi [Leonard]. Y’all might have been to the Eastern Conference finals, where we haven’t been to, but none of y’all were going to the Finals. It was one guy going to the Finals. Ain’t nobody separated from nothing. I know one guy that separated himself from the Eastern Conference every year and that was LeBron James and the Cavs. Other than that … if you lose in the second round, or the conference finals, you still didn’t get to your ultimate goal.

Yes, LeBron James has ruled the Eastern Conference for the last eight years. But Wall previously called Washington’s goal reaching the conference finals. It’s disingenuous of Wall now to say that feat – accomplished by the Celtics and Raptors, but not the Wizards, in recent years – means nothing now.

Boston, Toronto and Philadelphia (which was younger and better than Washington last season) have all earned their favored status. The Wizards could join the mix, but odds are against it.

How he and his team is treated is clearly important to Wall, and his response is usually to inflate his and his team’s standing in his own mind. If that motivates him to turn his perception into reality, that’s great. But in the interim, it leaves him sounding silly.