Yahoo Sports 
Wizards' John Wall donates $400K to D.C. homeless children's charity
No NBA player has delivered more assists over the past two seasons than John Wall. The All-Star point guard got on the board last week, lending his first helping hand of the season before the Washington Wizards even kicked off training camp ... and man, was it a big one.
[Follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr: The best slams from all of basketball]
From Cuneyt Dil of the Washington City Paper:
A D.C. center for homeless children got a surprise visit this morning from Washington Wizards point guard John Wall — and a $400,000 donation.
Bright Beginnings, an early childhood development and learning organization that serves around 162 children a day, announced the contribution in a news release. The money from Wall will help the center open its second planned facility in Ward 8, which will serve 100 additional children and their families and is expected to open in 2017.
“Support from individuals like Mr. Wall gives Bright Beginnings the encouragement to continue to provide comprehensive services for homeless children in the District of Columbia," wrote Bright Beginnings Executive Director Dr. Betty Jo Gaines in a statement announcing the gift. "It is evident that John Wall is sensitive and concerned about the plight of homeless children in DC and he wants these children to succeed.”
This isn't the first such significant donation to local causes by the 25-year-old lead guard. Wall pledged a cool million dollars to District-area charities after inking his five-year maximum salary contract back in 2013.
In an emotional press conference announcing the max extension of the rookie deal he signed after Washington selected him out of Kentucky with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2010 NBA draft, Wall spoke about why he felt the need to immediately commit seven figures to those less fortunate, as detailed by then-Washington Post scribe (and now, happily, my Yahoo Sports colleague) Michael Lee:
"It’s a humbling experience and great opportunity to sign this contract, but it’s not about just for me,” Wall said. “The main thing is giving back and giving back the right way. Giving back to these charities is a great opportunity.” [...]
"I want to donate my time along with the money,” Wall said. “My whole thing is I was put on this earth to be something, and I was blessed to be a great basketball player, but my main thing was to keep striving to be a better person. That’s one thing my mom always instilled in me, it doesn’t matter what nobody thinks about you as a basketball player, they are going to look at you as a person first.”
It's a message Wall delivered loud and clear when he took the time to help a young fan with cancer fulfill her dream of meeting pop star Nicki Minaj last year, developing a relationship with young Miyah Telemaque-Nelson that left the All-Star wracked with emotion after she passed last December, and it's one that he continues to communicate through actions like his visit to Bright Beginnings.
[Yahoo Fantasy Basketball: Sign up for a league today]
Coming off a season marked by peaks (his second straight All-Star berth, his first time being voted in as a starter, averaging a career-high 10 assists per game, leading Washington to its winningest season since 1979 and its second straight trip to the second round) and valleys (the shattered hand he suffered in Game 1 of Round 2 against the Atlanta Hawks, three straight last-second losses leading to their elimination after taking a 2-1 lead on the East's top seed), Wall enters the 2015-16 season with an opportunity to propel the Wizards to the top tier of Eastern Conference contention. After a summer of woulda-coulda-shouldas, Wall and his teammates seem eager to put the past behind them and embark on a deeper postseason push fueled by a more potent offensive attack led by his playmaking brilliance ... and, of course, a little bit of luck. From Jorge Castillo of the WaPo:
"The expectation’s to get through that wall, get over that hump,” Wall said. “The most important thing is you got to have a little bit of luck in those playoffs, and you also got to stay healthy. I think that’s what happened to us last year. But other than that, we just got to have the same mind-set of being a defensive-minded team, rebounding the ball, pushing the ball and sharing the ball. That’s when our team is great.”
Whether the Wiz have enough weapons and wherewithal to withstand the rigors of the coming campaign remains to be seen, but yet another example of Wall showing what kind of leader he's grown into (in spite of repeated ill-considered estimations to the contrary) doesn't seem like too bad a place to start ... and banking a little bit of good karma probably doesn't hurt, either.
- - - - - - -
Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
Stay connected with Ball Don't Lie on Twitter @YahooBDL, "Like" BDL on Facebook and follow Dunks Don't Lie on Tumblr for year-round NBA talk, jokes and more.
