John Wall has far superior creativity in his passing compared to Jose Calderon.
Calderon is better at fundamental passing. Executing an offense and delivering timely passes to the right spot to the right player on a regular basis. Also far less mistakes.
Jose Calderon = superior floor general
John Wall = superior playmaker
Difference of experience vs. superior talent without experience.
I disagree. I don't think Wall has the basketball IQ Calderon has. I am sure he will get better, but Calderon is exceptionally good at running an offense and seeing the game before it happens. I just don't see that from Wall.
Now, Wall on the other hand is great at making the game work for him. He can force the defense to do things much better than Calderon could ever dream. But he does not seem to have that innate ability to see things before they happen...which is good, because if he did he would be downright unstoppable.
This to me is the other extreme. Jose Calderon, when he became someone people talked about, was already 25 or 26 years old, a 3 yr NBA vet, and 1 year removed from taking Tau Ceramica to a Euroleague 2nd place finish as a starting point, after playing 6 more previous years as a PG in the Euroleague.
John Wall had 1 year in a substantially less competitive league, and 4 years in a way less competitive league before this season, and he's still going nuts. Sure, he makes dumb decisions with the ball, but to say he'll never get the cerebral basketball prowess of like a Jose Calderon is really premature. We have no idea who John Wall will be, all we know is that he'll be superfast.
OK, lets compare him with Rondo. A guy with some of the same physical tools, who came into the league in at least a similar age, and someone who I would say has that elite court awareness similar to Calderon's.
In watching them both in college and then at the beginning of their careers as pro's, I see a significant difference in their court vision, and basketball IQ. With Rondo, you could just see it even from when he was in highschool. While he still had to learn how to control it a bit more, he always had that inate ability to control everything, and to just know what was going to happen. I have yet to see that with Wall.
I think Wall is a talented passer, but I think he relies more on his freakish athleticism than his brain. Guys like Rondo on the other hand can pick a defense apart without taking a step.
Now, I think Wall is already one of the top PG's in the league, and I feel like within 2-3 years, he will have left guys like Rondo, and even Williams and Paul (if his knee doesn't get better) in the dust as the most dominant PG in the league. But I think he is a different style. He is just faster and stronger than everyone else, and he knows how to use it...and while he is not on the same level as Rondo mentally, he is a better floor leader than someone like Westbrook, who is one of the few guys who can match him physically.
