Wall has had plenty of nights to visualize the sequence.  “It’s going to be heartbreaking,” Wall said after a workout in Los Angeles during the N.B.A. finals. “If I look back to where my mom is, she’s going to have red-shot eyes from tears like it was raining.”  Barring an unexpected shift of events, the Washington Wizards will select Wall, the 19-year-old point guard from Kentucky, with the first pick Thursday night.  It matters little that they already have an All-Star (but troubled) point guard, Gilbert Arenas. The Wizards are purging their past and their payroll, and Wall is a purposeful step in that direction. He is in the direct lineage of recent franchise-changing point guards, Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans, who also served one-year college apprenticeships under John Calipari.  In Washington, Wall will join Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg as a youthful injection to jump-start the area’s downtrodden sports scene.  “John Wall has all the tools, athletic ability, character and personality to become an iconic N.B.A. player, but what gives our team great confidence that he will live up to these lofty expectations is his great work ethic,” Fegan said.  Fegan does not have to convince the Wizards. In a draft with few guarantees, Wall is one. The rest of the draft is a mystery. The Philadelphia 76ers are leaning heavily toward Ohio State’s Evan Turner with the second pick, but even that is not assured.  The real posturing begins next with the Nets. After working out forwards Derrick Favors of Georgia Tech and DeMarcus Cousins of Kentucky on Monday, the Nets have indicated they will select Syracuse’s Wes Johnson. Rod Thorn, the Nets’ president, may only be creating smokescreens, knowing the Minnesota Timberwolves, picking fourth, are eager to land Johnson.  Wall will be long gone by then, completing a drastic turnaround.  “John has changed his demeanor on the court 180 degrees,” said Dave Telep, Scout.com’s national basketball recruiting analyst. “He used to be a very volatile kid and he has matured and grown up and all while that happened, his basketball ability has exploded.”  Telep should know. He is based in Raleigh, N.C., where Wall was born and grew up, and has seen him play countless times.  As Wall completed a workout in Los Angeles, reporters noticed that he had no tattoos. Wall said he wanted one as a teenager, but Pulley told him no when he asked to have a portrait of his late father, John Carroll Wall, inked on his chest.  “When you’re 16, you still need your parent’s permission,” Wall said. “I could have went to a little rickety-dink shop outside and got it, but nah. I’m still going to have the same memory in my head, whether I have it on my chest or my body or not. It’s still going to be in my head.”  John Carroll Wall died from cancer when his son was not quite 9. John Wall spent his youth visiting his father in prison and only recently learned from a Washington Post reporter that the sentence stemmed from a convenience store robbery and that his father had earlier served time for second-degree murder.  His father’s death led Wall to refuse to accept authority or direction from adult men. It also led to a series of fights, particularly in middle school.  “That’s all I did,” Wall said, speaking before The Washington Post’s disclosure. “You hear so many jokes about parents, and I had so much anger that I felt I should take it out on other people instead of just taking it out on the basketball court and getting myself better and go to the gym and just zone out on everything but basketball.”  The troubled behavior continued all the way to high school, at Word of God Christian Academy in Raleigh. Before Wall became an elite player, he had a world-class attitude problem.  Wall recalled a game where he was taken out with his team leading by 20 points. The deficit dwindled to 2, and Coach Levi Beckwith told Wall to go back in and just take care of the ball.  “He walked to the scorer’s table and muttered under his breath that he may as well not even come in now,” Beckwith said. “I may have been the only one who heard him. I kindly asked him to come back to the bench.”  Beckwith, who will become Wall’s shooting coach with the Wizards, did not let any bad feelings fester. As he did many nights, he went to Wall’s house after the game and talked the situation over with Wall and Pulley.  “His mom said, ‘I wouldn’t put up with it either,’ ” Beckwith said. “Since we both agreed he was getting better, we agreed to put up with it a little longer.”  First, Beckwith tried to rid Wall of verbally demeaning his teammates after missed layups. The next year, they worked on his facial expressions. “By the time his senior year came, he had gotten rid of them both,” Beckwith said.  Still, there were rough spots. Wall was arrested on a breaking-and-entering charge in May 2009 and was sentenced to community service. He started listening to the Cliftons, who coached his Amateur Athletic Union team.  “They’re like older brothers, somebody that’s going to give me advice if I’m wrong and tell me if I’m not right,” Wall said.  As Wall blossomed, so did skepticism about his relationship with the Cliftons. At one point during Wall’s recruitment, Brian Clifton was a certified agent. Baylor, which hoped to lure Wall, hired Dwon Clifton in a newly created position.  An N.C.A.A. investigation forced Wall to miss an exhibition game and his collegiate opener at Kentucky and repay about $800 in expenses. The N.C.A.A. also enacted a rule prohibiting the hiring of noncoaching personnel in men’s basketball linked with a player two years before or after the player’s enrollment.  To Wall and the Cliftons, it was a brouhaha over nothing; Wall attended Kentucky, not Baylor. The Cliftons were there for Wall before the hype and helped mold him from the boy into the man.  A man who will soon be shaking hands with Stern. Wall has been counting down the days. When he spoke, he was at 23. Now it is time.  “I’m still happy,” Wall said. “I have an opportunity to be in the N.B.A. and play the game that I love the most and be able to take care of my family and myself.”
John Wall learned to deal with his anger after his fatherâs death, and now he is primed to be drafted No. 1 on Thursday by the Washington Wizards.