Jan Vesely Played 00:00 of in the Wizard's First Win

There was a lot of talk last night about how the Wizards got their first win of the season while relegating Jan Vesely to a DNP-CD.  And sure, the Wiz won the game over Portland to up their record to 1-12, and they hugged and smiled and cried in victory.  But then the refs conferred and decided that Wes Matthews had cleanly stolen Trevor Ariza's pass and called timeout in a span of just 0.3 seconds, leaving a grand total of 0.2 seconds left on the clock.

Yup, you guessed it: Vesely Time!  Coach Randy Wittman summoned him from the bench to guard against the Blazers' inbound pass, leading to the most impressive of box score lines:

Forget that Jan was largely ineffective as a pass guarder -- he allowed Portland to put the pass gently off the back of the rim for any would-be tip-ins.  The number six overall draft pick of the 2010 draft had made his mark on the game.

It has been a rough week for Vesely, as NBA.com writer David Aldridge called him out during a radio show Monday.

At this rate, I don’t see Jan Vesely lasting five years in this league.  Unless I am TOTALLY wrong on what he is.  But the skillset I see is nothing. Vesely's skillset is nothing.

Ouch.  Jan Vesely isn't the greatest player in the world, but if the +/- numbers mean something (and sometimes they don't), then the Wizards have been better off when he has been on the court than when he hasn't.

But to a point, Aldridge is right.  Vesely is tall and athletic, but he isn't terribly physical in the paint and his hands are made of gilded iron.  He has zero business taking a shot outside of 5 feet from the hoop. Jan fouls too often, and his girlfriend converts free throws at a rate that is twice what he does.  While the overall picture is not promising, but there is one last possibility for his partial salvation this season.

The one last glimmer of hope?  John Wall hasn't played yet.

With Wall as a partner last season, Vesely made 56% of his field goals, as opposed to the 47% of the attempts he converted without him.  Speculatively, the higher percentage came on the fast break, which is the one facet of basketball where both players excel.  You'll have to ask Ernie Grunfeld if he saw anything in the pair beyond that when he drafted them out of the lottery in successive years.

This season, Wall hasn't yet played; Vesely has been dreadful enough to earn Aldridge's harsh words: 29 points, 29 rebounds, 34 fouls.  But maybe, just maybe, Jan's play will get a nice uptick when Wall returns -- even if Mr. All-Circles Box Score never fully justifies being the sixth overall pick.