John Wall Says The Front Office May Have To ‘Figure Out’ The Wizards’ Issues If They Continue

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The Washington Wizards have been mostly treading water lately, and for a team with aspirations of being a real threat to the Conference crown this season, their fifth-place standing in the East and 6-4 record in their last 10 games isn’t nearly good enough.

And if the results of players-only meeting last week are any indication, their problems extend beyond the court as well.

Following a solid win over the Pistons on Friday, John Wall sounded off on just how unproductive that meeting was, via Candace Buckner of The Washington Post:

“We had our team meeting,” Wall said Friday. “A couple guys took it the negative way and it hurt our team. Instead of taking it in a positive way like we did in the past and using it to build our team up, it kind of set us back a little bit.”


Wall went so far as to even suggest that upper management might have to get involved to help find a solution if the problems persist, because at this point there’s not much more they can do to motivate the team they have to play better.

Wall holds a similar opinion. Players already had a chance to speak their minds, he said. And if games like the Charlotte loss happen again, then 14 guys sitting in a locker room will not be able to fix it. Wall extended his index finger to the ceiling and suggested the issue would have to be promoted to a higher power.

“Upstairs,” Wall said. “Front office got to figure it out.”

Wall wasn’t the only one who came away from that meeting with a sour taste in his mouth. Fellow backcourt star Bradley Beal found the meeting unproductive and is equally frustrated with the way things managed to get worse rather than better.

“It was tough. I try to keep all our stuff as personal as possible but I think in a way not everybody got a chance to speak whenever they wanted to,” Bradley Beal said. “They didn’t want to bring up an issue or something they had a problem with on the team. Regardless of what may be going on, as men we’ve got to be able to accept what the next man says, be respectful about it and move on from it. I think it was one of those situations where we didn’t necessarily get everything that we wanted to get accomplished.

“Honestly, it was probably — I won’t say pointless,” Beal continued, “but we didn’t accomplish what we needed to accomplish in that meeting.”

For the Wizards, the coming All-Star break might be just the opportunity they need to reflect and regroup for a second-half push. Despite their frustrating inconsistency, Washington remains just 1.5 games out of the No. 3 seed in the East. So, if they can figure things out they can still position themselves nicely for another deep playoff run this postseason, but if things don’t improve soon the front office might have to explore their options at the deadline.

(Washington Post)

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