Last week, The Post ran an A1 centerpiece on the Goodman League, the summer basketball circuit that has attracted players like Kevin Durant and Gilbert Arenas in recent years. In the story, commissioner Miles Rawls specifically called out a certain Wizards rookie guard.

“The Goodman league is a rite of passage,” reporter Shemar Woods wrote. “Players who want to claim they’re the best in the area must prove themselves on Barry Farm’s court. Rawls wants John Wall, the Wizards’ star point guard, to ‘earn his stripes’ in the league, as Arenas did.

‘He doesn’t have to play for the entire summer, just once,’ Rawls said.”

Well, it didn’t take long for Wall to answer Rawls’s challenge. The guard showed up at the League’s indoor stop at Spingarn High (see note below), scoring a game-high 41 points for “Baltimore’s Finest” in a game that also featured Gary Neal, Reggie Holmes, DeMarcus Cousins and Baby Shaq, who has played in every Goodman League game that’s ever been contested.

AFRO sports editor Perry Green wrote about the game here:

Wall, 20, showed off the freak athleticism that made him the No. 1 pick in the 2010 NBA draft, speeding up and down the court to score a game-high 41 points. He even showed off a long-range jumper that he’s been working on this offseason, one of his weaker areas that needed improvement. A few three-pointers in the first half helped Baltimore’s Finest leap out to a 74-56 lead at halftime.

“I’ve been working on it, so I’m getting more comfortable [shooting from range],” Wall told the AFRO. “I just have to keep working and working.”

For a more colorful analysis, you could always type “John Wall” and “Spingarn” into a Twitter search, and find something like this:

(Photo via @FINAOforSTAT)

Note: A reader points out that this was not technically a Goodman League game, but was instead a Goodman Coalition game. I’m not totally clear on the distinction, but I apologize for the error.