John Wall already a ratings hit in D.C.

Granted, my capacity for amazement is fairly limitless, but I was nevertheless amazed by the ratings for John Wall's Summer League debut on Comcast SportsNet. Summer League is to NBA basketball like Redskins radio transcriptions are to Washington Post three-part series by Dana Priest. They're sort of the same thing, if you squint a little bit, plug up your ears, and hit yourself over the head with a baseball bat 70 or 80 times.

And yet people turned in to watch these pseudo-exhibitions. The five Summer League games on CSN averaged a 0.83 household rating in the D.C. market, equal to nearly 20,000 households, according to Nielsen numbers. It doesn't sound like much, but bear in mind that the Nats last season averaged a 0.60 rating on MASN and MASN2. Hell, bear in mind that the Wizards averaged a 0.79 rating on CSN in 2008-2009, and a 1.16 last season. So yes, John Wall's Summer Leaguers outdrew the actual NBA Washington Wizards from two seasons ago, and the actual Washington Nationals from last year.

Sure, those teams were terrible and those seasons felt endless, but the fact remains that the 2010 Wizards Summer Leaguers attracted more TV viewers on average than the 2009 Nats or the 2009 Wizards.

(As of mid-May of this season, the Nats were averaging a 1.0 household rating.)

Wall's debut, Sunday against Golden State, earned a 1.05 rating. His third game, Thursday night against Dallas, earned a 1.22. By way of comparison, before Stephen Straburg arrived, a 1.8 rating was the best the Nats had earned locally since 2007.