With LeBron James leaving the Eastern Conference, there is a clearer path to the NBA Finals and a few teams are expected to jockey for position throughout the 2018-19 season. The Boston Celtics are seen by many as the team to beat but there will be plenty of competition from the Toronto Raptors if Kawhi Leonard is at full strength, while the Philadelphia 76ers display immense talent to the point where they shouldn’t be discounted.
However, Wizards point guard John Wall isn’t ready to accept the fact that there is a three-team conference race and he indicated in a recent interview with Michael Lee of Yahoo Sports that he believes Washington is on the same level.
“I feel like we’re all equal,” Wall said. “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,” Wall continued. “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.”
Within the confines of the same interview, Wall shed further light on his team, revealing that the Wizards “look great” and that he expects change after a season in which “it was just guys all for themselves last year.” While it is certainly fair to indicate that Washington’s true talent level likely surpasses the 43-win performance from 2017-18, the addition of Dwight Howard was controversial and Wall himself did not play at quite the same level as in previous years.
Obviously, NBA players are likely to be confident in themselves and, by extension, the prospects of their teams in the future. Still, it might be a stretch to believe that the Wizards are “all equal” with teams like the Raptors, Sixers and Celtics, leaving Wall with a great deal of pressure to live up to comments like this, even in August.
