Odds are, if you’re reading this, you don’t need me to convince you John Wall has done an outstanding job of playing through pain and shouldering heavy minute loads in his six-year NBA career. But every now and then, it’s nice to dig into some numbers to appreciate just how much Wall has done in his short career, and how important it is for the Wizards to monitor his playing time as he starts to get a little older.
He’s currently averaging the 6th-most minutes per game among active players
The only players who have averaged more playing time per game than Wall during his NBA career are stalwarts from the 2000’s (LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Joe Johnson) who logged big minutes back when it was more common to play 40 minutes per game, and Damian Lillard.
Something to keep in mind with Lillard: He logged 38.6 minutes per game his rookie season. Since then, Lillard has never played more than 36 minutes per game, something Wall has done four times in his career. The only times Wall fell short of that mark were during the 2012-13 season when he averaged 32.3 minutes because he had to work his way back into form after his knee issues, and the 2014-15 season, when he averaged 35.9 minutes.
He’s played more minutes than anyone else from the 2010 Draft class
Even though he missed 33 games during his third season due to knee troubles, he’s still logged over 1000 more regular season minutes than anyone else from his draft class.
What’s even more impressive is that he’s logged more minutes than all but three players from the 2009 draft class (Stephen Curry, James Harden, DeMar DeRozan).
Wall has already played the 10th-most regular season minutes in franchise history
Wall is only 16th in franchise history in regular season games played in Washington, but he’s already up to 10th in minutes played, thanks to averaging 36.0 minutes per game during his NBA career to date. If he plays 2700 minutes this season (something he’s done in each of the last three seasons) he’ll move into 8th place, ahead of Antawn Jamison and Juwan Howard, by the end of the 2016-17 season.