After 11 seasons in the NBA, five-time All-Star John Wall is officially retiring from basketball.

Now 34 years old, Wall was the first overall pick of the 2010 NBA Draft and immediately made an impact with the Washington Wizards. He finished second in Rookie of the Year voting in 2011 and became an All-Star by his fourth season. This kicked off a stretch of five consecutive All-Star selections between 2014 and 2018 which marked the high points of the 6’3 guard’s career.

Wall was undoubtedly one of the best guards in the NBA as he used his phenomenal speed and athleticism to get to wherever he wanted to on the court. His best individual campaign came in ‘16-’17 where he averaged career-highs in points (23.1), assists (10.7), and steals (2.0). During this season, he was seventh in Most Valuable Player voting and made it to the All-NBA Third team.

He also averaged at least 10 assists per game for three consecutive seasons (2015-2017), highlighting that his abilities as a point guard were not just limited to explosive drives to the basket.

The Wizards achieved their most successful stretch in franchise history since the 1970s with Wall onboard. They made it to the second round of the postseason in three out of four years between 2014 and 2017, including a heartbreaking Game 7 loss to the Boston Celtics in 2017.

During that 2017 playoff run, Wall played the best all-around basketball of his career. In 13 postseason games that year, he put up 27.2 points, 3.7 rebounds, 10.3 assists, 1.7 steals, and 1.3 blocks in 39 minutes per game. He and Bradley Beal formed arguably the second best backcourt in all of basketball at that time, behind only the historic duo of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson who were in the middle of leading the Golden State Warriors to multiple titles.

Between Wall’s arrival and Washington’s 1978 NBA championship, the franchise only made it out of the first round a mere three times. So while Wall’s body of work might not stand out in the grand scheme of things in the NBA, his contributions to what wound up becoming the Wizards’ best stretch in over 30 years should warrant him strong consideration for jersey retirement now that he has officially hung up his sneakers.

Wall wound up spending nine seasons out of his 11 in the NBA with Washington and had injuries not slowed him down, his time with the team would have likely been longer and even more fruitful. He has actually not been on an NBA roster since 2023, so his retirement from the game is a formality more than anything else.

Despite all of Wall’s on-court brilliance, the what-ifs of his career will always linger. If he had stayed healthy, how good could he have become? Could he have made it past the second round of the playoffs? How different would the Wizards’ past few seasons have been? 

Nonetheless, he was a force of nature and an absolute joy to watch at his peak. He made Washington relevant again, even for a brief moment in time during the league’s long history.

Wall deserves to have his #2 jersey hanging from the rafters at the Capital One Arena. For everything he gave this franchise—and all of the injuries that he took in the process—it would be a fitting final nod to a magical career.