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On a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon in June, this afternoon we take a deep dive into the game and background of one of the nation's most intriguing players, Arizona wing man Stanley Johnson. Johnson measured in at the NBA combine at 6'6 1/2, with a very long 6'11 1/2 wingspan to go with a rock solid 242lb frame. Perhaps more than anyone else profiled so far, Johnson clearly passes the eye test....but how will his game translate to this level? Let's explore those possibilities below:
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First today, his background is worth knowing about for all of you.
Johnson was born on May 29, 1996, to Stanley Johnson Sr and to Karen Taylor. While having a 6'6 father helps, Johnson has much more influenced by his mother, who was a 6'2 dynamic basketball player in her own right from Mississippi. She was an All American player at Jackson State, then went on to a long professional career in Europe prior to becoming a mother and ending her own career to raise her son.
When Johnson was 5, Taylor was by then divorced from his father and raising him as a single mother. She decided that basketball would be his way to future success, just like it had taken her from the tough neighborhood in Mississippi she grew up in to become a star. While looking for the exact right place to allow her own son Stanley to being playing at age 5, she wasn't happy with what she found in her southern California town of Fullerton. So, she started her own league/program known as the Southern Cal Tiger program, and coached Stanley and many other children to a huge amount of success at early ages.
Johnson was clearly identified early on as a basketball prodigy. The only sport he ever played was basketball, and he was clearly a gym rat at an early age. By age 11, his abilities had begun to blossom, and even then he was much more athletic and advanced than others in his mother's program, so she began to find him other high level opportunities to grow his game and improve, sparing no expense to provide him with the best programs, travel teams, and personal trainers that money can buy.
Johnson was by age 14 a very well known athlete in southern California. As happens in most areas of the country outside our very own basketball hotbed state, many national powerhouse high school programs began to recruit him to join their programs as a freshman. Johnson and his mom eventually turned down Findlay Prep and others and joined Mater Dei High School, a very wealthy school in southern California's Orange County that has had multiple outstanding athletes come through it.
Johnson did things there that had never been done before, winning 4 consecutive state championships, and going I believe 133-5 in his high school career. He played as an inside player early in his career, eventually becoming a starter midway through his freshman year. He continued to improve his skills enough to move to the perimeter, and then he played as a supersized point guard his senior year at Mater Dei.
Work ethic and character has never been a problem for Johnson. He worked out religiously during high school, often going to school at 6AM to practice by himself, then working out again after practice with his own personal trainers. That type of work ethic and notoriety got him noticed nationally, and got him to be heavily involved with the USA basketball program at age 16.
During the 16U summer season, Johnson supposedly really struggled against the other elite players there. Rather than give up or get down on himself, it was then that he told his mother that he would train even harder, and eventually become one of the best players on that team eventually. Last summer, his hard work paid off as he became a starter for team USA, and was named team captain of that squad.
Johnson was thought of by many as the top player in the history of Orange County California, and was the #3 ranked high school player in his class before committing to Arizona and playing 1 year for the Wildcats. Johnson played perhaps his worst 2 games of his season/career in the tournament, and really struggled against Wisconsin, almost leading him to return to college. Finally common sense prevailed, and Johnson declared for the NBA draft and a role in the top basketball league in the world.
Extremely well spoken, mature, physically ready, and prepared, Johnson is about as ready for the NBA as any player profiled this year from a maturity standpoint, despite his young age of being barely 19.
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Johnson averaged 13.8PPG, with 6.5 RPG at Arizona, shooting 37.1 from the 3 point line, which was extremely improved from his days playing for USA basketball and in high school. Let's examine his defensive game first however.
There are a ton of positives obviously to Johnson's skill level. Johnson is a pure 3 man, who possibly can play some minutes against small ball 4's due to his high level of strength in his upper body. He is an extremely versatile defender who I think can guard premium wing players at the NBA level. He has a great first step slide, and when he chooses to he "sits in the chair" very well. He can belly up to ballhandlers who struggle with that, or he can back off a half step and use his length to play the angles. I wrote several times this note :"he is a great "technical" defender.....which to me means he does everything you would want someone to do when guarding a player with the ball in his hands. He will excel I project as an "ISO" defender guarding the opponents best players head to head, at least as much as you can when guarding the world's best weapons.
Away from the ball and one pass away, he also has the ability to be extremely disruptive. Johnson can blow up screens, getting "skinny" in the alleyway and getting through the trash to recover to his man. He can be a denial defender, keeping players from receiving the ball where they want to get it, and using his length to get deflections and steals, and better yet, perhaps persuading teams to go away from him to initiate their offense.
Away from the ball one pass away, he isn't as technically proficient as he is on the ball, as he sometimes will get beaten.....but not usually in the same ways more than once in a row....he thinks the game defensively, and looks like he can process information well and adjust things in his mind on the fly. He looks like a strong scouting report defender. His mistakes more often than not are that he is a "hugger" away from the ball and tends to cling to his man, letting him be more "screen able" than necessary, but to this point he seems to have enough elite athleticism to overcome what I would call some positional mistakes he makes.
He also consistently and thoroughly gives high effort contesting shots, though as fatigue and concentration wanes he occasionally (like most players) will slack some. Still, his elite length and defensive bulldog mentality makes shooting a jumpshot in his grill a tough task, as he stretches his left hand very high on shot attempts, and he is a reasonably quick leaper off the ground on pullup attempts he defends. Guarding and contesting the pullup jumper, leaping and stretching to contest those shots instead of being anchored on the ground is what takes a defender from being above average to elite.
Having bragged heavily on his defense like I just did, let me also say that not everything is all rainbows and unicorns for his defensive abilities. Away from the ball as a help defender, he isn't very good. He is so focused and "huggy" to his own man that he doesn't focus much on help, and while he clings to his own man very well, he isn't a guy who is going to block shots or stop drives from others all that well. And when he does choose to be more of a helper, he struggles a bit with "seeing both", as he tends to like to either stare at his own man with both eyes, or stare at the ball with both eyes. He can also be backdoored some if a team chooses to do that.
Despite the occasional lapse in concentration and not perfect technique away from the ball, he seems to be very coachable and athletic enough to overcome most of his own mistakes. Johnson seems like a tough, hard nosed, smart long defender who profiles as a guy who can shutdown someone's 2nd option, or who can be tasked to guard the opponents best on a nightly basis. His nickname of "Stanimal" is well earned.
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Johnson is interesting to watch as a rebounder.
You'd think he would be great, and he is really good because he is so strong and tough minded. He will go attack the ball and fight for it in traffic, and when he gets a defensive board, he is very capable of starting his own fast break with 2 or 3 dribbles to get it out and up the floor with an eventual pass.
What lets you down just a bit is that, despite all of his athletic prowess, he doesn't really sky up over people and become a high flyer. He is quick off the ground, he just doesn't get as high in the air as it seems like he should because it looks like he needs a couple of steps to gain momentum. He is like a car that takes an extra second to take off...his torque is a bit lower than you'd expect. Still, he can be first in the air when he can track the ball, and nobody is either going to push him out of the way or outfight him for a ball he can get near. As long as he plays the "3", he will be a plus wing rebounder I project at the NBA level.
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Offensively, he is a mixed bag for sure.
Breaking down his jump shot first, he clearly had a goal to become a much better 3 point shooter in his college season than he ever had been, and he accomplished that, raising his number up to a respectable 37.1%. How did he do that?
Johnson clearly listening to his trainers and coaches in terms of shot selection is how improved the most.
Johnson, quite frankly only took high quality 3 point shots, and particularly showed a ton of progress as a shooter with his feet totally set. He is a sweep and sway shooter, showing good form, good dip, and a straightforward clean release. His elbow position isn't always high enough, and on his misses he usually misses short and flat, not getting his elbow up to his eye which gives him a flatter than ideal trajectory.
Johnson was clearly coached well on his decision making on whether to shoot or not.....which I liked very much from Coach Miller. Johnson ONLY TOOK SHOTS WHEN THE PASS TO HIM WAS PERFECT OR ALMOST PERFECT.....if it was, he shot. If it was too high/low or off target, he usually would gather it and drive. So his shooting itself didn't improve nearly as much as his self discipline did about when to shoot at all.
His FT% was a solid 74.2%, and I see no reason why Johnson can't be a 36-38% shooter in time from behind the NBA line, even though I think he will end up taking a lower volume of 3 point shots than is typically of this day and age.
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Johnson plays "downhill", showing just a little wiggle on his drive game. He'd still much rather go through the defense than around it, which led to this note appearing in my notebook quite often: "bull in china shop....charge waiting to happen".
His ballhandling/passing/drive game is all a work in progress, with his ballhandling being the major flaw that will have to be fixed somehow for him to hit his ceiling.
As good a job as Johnson did with decision making on whether to launch a 3 point shot, he did just as bad a job as deciding what to do when he drove the basketball. Johnson, despite all the training/skill/athleticism, was one of the worst finishers in the paint I watched for this project. So that naturally begs the question...why? My answers are:
1. He stares down at the basketball when making any high level move. This causes him to lose vision of the defense. His handle isn't good enough to be an iso guy and likely never will be.
2. When his handle is ok or if he is driving only in a straight line, he stares at his own defender, and fails to see behind the main defender to the next level.
3. He takes a false step sometimes in his takeoff move. (he does that defensively too, but on that end he recovers in a better way)
So what this leads to is a lot of drives into traffic, and he can't see well enough to know where the help came from, so that doesn't let him pass well. He isn't a draw and dish guy, because he cant see the next level and he can't operate in traffic well enough to get a runway so he can jump over the defense and make plays in the air.....he is grounded. So, he ends up taking tough shots over length, charging, or turning the ball over.
How he develops as a driver is going to be interesting for me to watch. Some places he could go will severely limit his role, to keep him out of those type of situations. They will MANAGE his game.....others will try and let him do those things and try like hell to improve his skills so he can do more....those teams will GROW his game. Which one of those 2 philosophies he ends up with in the development phase will decide what his long term ceiling ends up being.
With him being a super hard worker and only 19 years old, I think teams should clearly live with his mistakes and try and let him grow his abilities, but not every coach in the world will be secure enough and patient/long term thinking enough to do that. If he gets in the wrong place, which would be a place that doesn't develop him but yet doesn't manage him either, you'll get the worst of all outcomes....he will keep driving and taking bad shots, he will underachieve, teammates will think he is selfish because he cant see them open, and things will snowball from there potentially. Like almost all players, he needs to be in the right situation to totally prosper.
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So what do we have in Stanley Johnson?
I think we have a well spoken, extremely driven and hard working player with a defensive bulldog mentality and some offensive upside. I think he is a pure 3 man with some slight abilities to play the 4 in the exact right circumstances and matchups. He still has development to do offensively, but he should help right away from a defensive and toughness standpoint.
His ceiling I think is as a 2nd/3rd team all defensive wing player who also scores 13-15pts per night on average. I also think he becomes a guy who changes your culture, becomes a leader, and helps makes winning basketball plays all over the floor, in particularly in the defensive end.
Johnson can be the 3rd-4th scorer and best defender on a high level, championship level team if he hits his ceiling, with the potential to have explosive offensive games if he continues his upwards trajectory and is developed well. I like the player, borderline love him, and would love to have him.
I also love, maybe more than anything, the intangibles. This is a kid who has worked out in southern California for years with pro players. This is a kid who has played on the biggest stages in the world, and who led teams that had players who will be picked above him in this draft. Johnson is the kid who trash talked LeBron James as a 17 year old at the LeBron camp in Akron 2 summers ago. He is brash, but also intelligent and self aware. He has been raised well by a strong mother, and wears her #41 as a tribute to her. He gives talks to youth groups in his hometown of Fullerton, and he volunteers each summer at a Sr. Living Center.
This kid, like some others in this draft, gets it. He will be a good to very good NBA player.
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But how does he fit with Indiana?
This is where it gets a bit trickier in my view.
IF IF IF, we are genuinely serious about playing Paul George 10-16 minutes a game at the "4" position, then Johnson is a strong fit as a guy who can play next to Paul for 16 minutes a game or so, and who can back up Paul the other 10-16 minutes a game that Paul sits.
If that is all lip service, then his fit is murkier, because his offensive game isn't totally compatible with Paul George if you are playing with an old fashioned traditional lineup. Ideally, I think you'd want a better ballhandler to play between Paul George and George Hill, OR you'd want a knockdown deadeye shooter...and this kid is neither of those exactly.
As a defensive pairing though, he'd really help us. One of our big team weaknesses is that we ask Paul George to both be our leading scorer and to guard the other teams best dudes....and he isn't QUITE good enough to take us to the title if he has to do that I don't think. Ideally, we need either a more elite scorer next to Paul or a near elite defender next to him so he can concentrate on scoring more often. Johnson can do that defensive role I project, and still not be a total dud on offense.
Bottom line is this in my view: he isn't a perfect fit, but he is a good fit, so I like the player a lot and think he will be better than solid with a high character. He is definitely someone to STRONGLY consider taking if he somehow makes it to pick #11.
So far of the players I have broken down, I WOULD NOT take Kevon Looney, Jerien Grant, or Kelly Oubre for sure.
I WOULD CONSIDER Tyus Jones and Willie Cauley Stein, but likely would pass on those guys to choose others I like better.
I WOULD DEFINITELY take Kaminsky or Johnson on this team and be very happy with my team getting better. By the end of this process, there will be other players I breakdown who join all 3 of these groups. The best thing about this year's somewhat deeper draft is that I think we can sit at #11 and for sure likely get 1 of 4 to 5 players I will end up rating highly.
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But will Johnson be there for us at #11?
It is unclear, but it is a possibility that he will. He fits very well at #4 with the Knicks in my opinion, but to this point they don't seem all that interested. (why I have no idea, let's hope they don't read this I guess
I don't think he fits in Orlando at #5, and I think Stein ends up at Sacramento at #6. Detroit at #8 and Charlotte at #9 make no sense for him in my view, barring someone trading up ahead of us.
So the most likely fits for him are Denver at #7 and Miami at #10. Denver is crazy so who knows what they will do, and I think Miami has their eyes on a couple of other players from what I can tell. He could very well fall to us, it is very much a possibility.
Ultimately though I think he ends up going at #7 to the Denver Nuggets, but don't fall asleep on this kid if a couple of other players move up unexpectedly.
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NBA comparable: Gerald Wallace, Luol Deng
These were pretty easy I thought. High character guys who played big minutes, guarded the best, and scored in the mid teens every night for strong teams.
As always, the above is my opinion only, so please feel free to disagree.
Tbird
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First today, his background is worth knowing about for all of you.
Johnson was born on May 29, 1996, to Stanley Johnson Sr and to Karen Taylor. While having a 6'6 father helps, Johnson has much more influenced by his mother, who was a 6'2 dynamic basketball player in her own right from Mississippi. She was an All American player at Jackson State, then went on to a long professional career in Europe prior to becoming a mother and ending her own career to raise her son.
When Johnson was 5, Taylor was by then divorced from his father and raising him as a single mother. She decided that basketball would be his way to future success, just like it had taken her from the tough neighborhood in Mississippi she grew up in to become a star. While looking for the exact right place to allow her own son Stanley to being playing at age 5, she wasn't happy with what she found in her southern California town of Fullerton. So, she started her own league/program known as the Southern Cal Tiger program, and coached Stanley and many other children to a huge amount of success at early ages.
Johnson was clearly identified early on as a basketball prodigy. The only sport he ever played was basketball, and he was clearly a gym rat at an early age. By age 11, his abilities had begun to blossom, and even then he was much more athletic and advanced than others in his mother's program, so she began to find him other high level opportunities to grow his game and improve, sparing no expense to provide him with the best programs, travel teams, and personal trainers that money can buy.
Johnson was by age 14 a very well known athlete in southern California. As happens in most areas of the country outside our very own basketball hotbed state, many national powerhouse high school programs began to recruit him to join their programs as a freshman. Johnson and his mom eventually turned down Findlay Prep and others and joined Mater Dei High School, a very wealthy school in southern California's Orange County that has had multiple outstanding athletes come through it.
Johnson did things there that had never been done before, winning 4 consecutive state championships, and going I believe 133-5 in his high school career. He played as an inside player early in his career, eventually becoming a starter midway through his freshman year. He continued to improve his skills enough to move to the perimeter, and then he played as a supersized point guard his senior year at Mater Dei.
Work ethic and character has never been a problem for Johnson. He worked out religiously during high school, often going to school at 6AM to practice by himself, then working out again after practice with his own personal trainers. That type of work ethic and notoriety got him noticed nationally, and got him to be heavily involved with the USA basketball program at age 16.
During the 16U summer season, Johnson supposedly really struggled against the other elite players there. Rather than give up or get down on himself, it was then that he told his mother that he would train even harder, and eventually become one of the best players on that team eventually. Last summer, his hard work paid off as he became a starter for team USA, and was named team captain of that squad.
Johnson was thought of by many as the top player in the history of Orange County California, and was the #3 ranked high school player in his class before committing to Arizona and playing 1 year for the Wildcats. Johnson played perhaps his worst 2 games of his season/career in the tournament, and really struggled against Wisconsin, almost leading him to return to college. Finally common sense prevailed, and Johnson declared for the NBA draft and a role in the top basketball league in the world.
Extremely well spoken, mature, physically ready, and prepared, Johnson is about as ready for the NBA as any player profiled this year from a maturity standpoint, despite his young age of being barely 19.
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Johnson averaged 13.8PPG, with 6.5 RPG at Arizona, shooting 37.1 from the 3 point line, which was extremely improved from his days playing for USA basketball and in high school. Let's examine his defensive game first however.
There are a ton of positives obviously to Johnson's skill level. Johnson is a pure 3 man, who possibly can play some minutes against small ball 4's due to his high level of strength in his upper body. He is an extremely versatile defender who I think can guard premium wing players at the NBA level. He has a great first step slide, and when he chooses to he "sits in the chair" very well. He can belly up to ballhandlers who struggle with that, or he can back off a half step and use his length to play the angles. I wrote several times this note :"he is a great "technical" defender.....which to me means he does everything you would want someone to do when guarding a player with the ball in his hands. He will excel I project as an "ISO" defender guarding the opponents best players head to head, at least as much as you can when guarding the world's best weapons.
Away from the ball and one pass away, he also has the ability to be extremely disruptive. Johnson can blow up screens, getting "skinny" in the alleyway and getting through the trash to recover to his man. He can be a denial defender, keeping players from receiving the ball where they want to get it, and using his length to get deflections and steals, and better yet, perhaps persuading teams to go away from him to initiate their offense.
Away from the ball one pass away, he isn't as technically proficient as he is on the ball, as he sometimes will get beaten.....but not usually in the same ways more than once in a row....he thinks the game defensively, and looks like he can process information well and adjust things in his mind on the fly. He looks like a strong scouting report defender. His mistakes more often than not are that he is a "hugger" away from the ball and tends to cling to his man, letting him be more "screen able" than necessary, but to this point he seems to have enough elite athleticism to overcome what I would call some positional mistakes he makes.
He also consistently and thoroughly gives high effort contesting shots, though as fatigue and concentration wanes he occasionally (like most players) will slack some. Still, his elite length and defensive bulldog mentality makes shooting a jumpshot in his grill a tough task, as he stretches his left hand very high on shot attempts, and he is a reasonably quick leaper off the ground on pullup attempts he defends. Guarding and contesting the pullup jumper, leaping and stretching to contest those shots instead of being anchored on the ground is what takes a defender from being above average to elite.
Having bragged heavily on his defense like I just did, let me also say that not everything is all rainbows and unicorns for his defensive abilities. Away from the ball as a help defender, he isn't very good. He is so focused and "huggy" to his own man that he doesn't focus much on help, and while he clings to his own man very well, he isn't a guy who is going to block shots or stop drives from others all that well. And when he does choose to be more of a helper, he struggles a bit with "seeing both", as he tends to like to either stare at his own man with both eyes, or stare at the ball with both eyes. He can also be backdoored some if a team chooses to do that.
Despite the occasional lapse in concentration and not perfect technique away from the ball, he seems to be very coachable and athletic enough to overcome most of his own mistakes. Johnson seems like a tough, hard nosed, smart long defender who profiles as a guy who can shutdown someone's 2nd option, or who can be tasked to guard the opponents best on a nightly basis. His nickname of "Stanimal" is well earned.
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Johnson is interesting to watch as a rebounder.
You'd think he would be great, and he is really good because he is so strong and tough minded. He will go attack the ball and fight for it in traffic, and when he gets a defensive board, he is very capable of starting his own fast break with 2 or 3 dribbles to get it out and up the floor with an eventual pass.
What lets you down just a bit is that, despite all of his athletic prowess, he doesn't really sky up over people and become a high flyer. He is quick off the ground, he just doesn't get as high in the air as it seems like he should because it looks like he needs a couple of steps to gain momentum. He is like a car that takes an extra second to take off...his torque is a bit lower than you'd expect. Still, he can be first in the air when he can track the ball, and nobody is either going to push him out of the way or outfight him for a ball he can get near. As long as he plays the "3", he will be a plus wing rebounder I project at the NBA level.
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Offensively, he is a mixed bag for sure.
Breaking down his jump shot first, he clearly had a goal to become a much better 3 point shooter in his college season than he ever had been, and he accomplished that, raising his number up to a respectable 37.1%. How did he do that?
Johnson clearly listening to his trainers and coaches in terms of shot selection is how improved the most.
Johnson, quite frankly only took high quality 3 point shots, and particularly showed a ton of progress as a shooter with his feet totally set. He is a sweep and sway shooter, showing good form, good dip, and a straightforward clean release. His elbow position isn't always high enough, and on his misses he usually misses short and flat, not getting his elbow up to his eye which gives him a flatter than ideal trajectory.
Johnson was clearly coached well on his decision making on whether to shoot or not.....which I liked very much from Coach Miller. Johnson ONLY TOOK SHOTS WHEN THE PASS TO HIM WAS PERFECT OR ALMOST PERFECT.....if it was, he shot. If it was too high/low or off target, he usually would gather it and drive. So his shooting itself didn't improve nearly as much as his self discipline did about when to shoot at all.
His FT% was a solid 74.2%, and I see no reason why Johnson can't be a 36-38% shooter in time from behind the NBA line, even though I think he will end up taking a lower volume of 3 point shots than is typically of this day and age.
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Johnson plays "downhill", showing just a little wiggle on his drive game. He'd still much rather go through the defense than around it, which led to this note appearing in my notebook quite often: "bull in china shop....charge waiting to happen".
His ballhandling/passing/drive game is all a work in progress, with his ballhandling being the major flaw that will have to be fixed somehow for him to hit his ceiling.
As good a job as Johnson did with decision making on whether to launch a 3 point shot, he did just as bad a job as deciding what to do when he drove the basketball. Johnson, despite all the training/skill/athleticism, was one of the worst finishers in the paint I watched for this project. So that naturally begs the question...why? My answers are:
1. He stares down at the basketball when making any high level move. This causes him to lose vision of the defense. His handle isn't good enough to be an iso guy and likely never will be.
2. When his handle is ok or if he is driving only in a straight line, he stares at his own defender, and fails to see behind the main defender to the next level.
3. He takes a false step sometimes in his takeoff move. (he does that defensively too, but on that end he recovers in a better way)
So what this leads to is a lot of drives into traffic, and he can't see well enough to know where the help came from, so that doesn't let him pass well. He isn't a draw and dish guy, because he cant see the next level and he can't operate in traffic well enough to get a runway so he can jump over the defense and make plays in the air.....he is grounded. So, he ends up taking tough shots over length, charging, or turning the ball over.
How he develops as a driver is going to be interesting for me to watch. Some places he could go will severely limit his role, to keep him out of those type of situations. They will MANAGE his game.....others will try and let him do those things and try like hell to improve his skills so he can do more....those teams will GROW his game. Which one of those 2 philosophies he ends up with in the development phase will decide what his long term ceiling ends up being.
With him being a super hard worker and only 19 years old, I think teams should clearly live with his mistakes and try and let him grow his abilities, but not every coach in the world will be secure enough and patient/long term thinking enough to do that. If he gets in the wrong place, which would be a place that doesn't develop him but yet doesn't manage him either, you'll get the worst of all outcomes....he will keep driving and taking bad shots, he will underachieve, teammates will think he is selfish because he cant see them open, and things will snowball from there potentially. Like almost all players, he needs to be in the right situation to totally prosper.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So what do we have in Stanley Johnson?
I think we have a well spoken, extremely driven and hard working player with a defensive bulldog mentality and some offensive upside. I think he is a pure 3 man with some slight abilities to play the 4 in the exact right circumstances and matchups. He still has development to do offensively, but he should help right away from a defensive and toughness standpoint.
His ceiling I think is as a 2nd/3rd team all defensive wing player who also scores 13-15pts per night on average. I also think he becomes a guy who changes your culture, becomes a leader, and helps makes winning basketball plays all over the floor, in particularly in the defensive end.
Johnson can be the 3rd-4th scorer and best defender on a high level, championship level team if he hits his ceiling, with the potential to have explosive offensive games if he continues his upwards trajectory and is developed well. I like the player, borderline love him, and would love to have him.
I also love, maybe more than anything, the intangibles. This is a kid who has worked out in southern California for years with pro players. This is a kid who has played on the biggest stages in the world, and who led teams that had players who will be picked above him in this draft. Johnson is the kid who trash talked LeBron James as a 17 year old at the LeBron camp in Akron 2 summers ago. He is brash, but also intelligent and self aware. He has been raised well by a strong mother, and wears her #41 as a tribute to her. He gives talks to youth groups in his hometown of Fullerton, and he volunteers each summer at a Sr. Living Center.
This kid, like some others in this draft, gets it. He will be a good to very good NBA player.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But how does he fit with Indiana?
This is where it gets a bit trickier in my view.
IF IF IF, we are genuinely serious about playing Paul George 10-16 minutes a game at the "4" position, then Johnson is a strong fit as a guy who can play next to Paul for 16 minutes a game or so, and who can back up Paul the other 10-16 minutes a game that Paul sits.
If that is all lip service, then his fit is murkier, because his offensive game isn't totally compatible with Paul George if you are playing with an old fashioned traditional lineup. Ideally, I think you'd want a better ballhandler to play between Paul George and George Hill, OR you'd want a knockdown deadeye shooter...and this kid is neither of those exactly.
As a defensive pairing though, he'd really help us. One of our big team weaknesses is that we ask Paul George to both be our leading scorer and to guard the other teams best dudes....and he isn't QUITE good enough to take us to the title if he has to do that I don't think. Ideally, we need either a more elite scorer next to Paul or a near elite defender next to him so he can concentrate on scoring more often. Johnson can do that defensive role I project, and still not be a total dud on offense.
Bottom line is this in my view: he isn't a perfect fit, but he is a good fit, so I like the player a lot and think he will be better than solid with a high character. He is definitely someone to STRONGLY consider taking if he somehow makes it to pick #11.
So far of the players I have broken down, I WOULD NOT take Kevon Looney, Jerien Grant, or Kelly Oubre for sure.
I WOULD CONSIDER Tyus Jones and Willie Cauley Stein, but likely would pass on those guys to choose others I like better.
I WOULD DEFINITELY take Kaminsky or Johnson on this team and be very happy with my team getting better. By the end of this process, there will be other players I breakdown who join all 3 of these groups. The best thing about this year's somewhat deeper draft is that I think we can sit at #11 and for sure likely get 1 of 4 to 5 players I will end up rating highly.
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But will Johnson be there for us at #11?
It is unclear, but it is a possibility that he will. He fits very well at #4 with the Knicks in my opinion, but to this point they don't seem all that interested. (why I have no idea, let's hope they don't read this I guess
I don't think he fits in Orlando at #5, and I think Stein ends up at Sacramento at #6. Detroit at #8 and Charlotte at #9 make no sense for him in my view, barring someone trading up ahead of us.
So the most likely fits for him are Denver at #7 and Miami at #10. Denver is crazy so who knows what they will do, and I think Miami has their eyes on a couple of other players from what I can tell. He could very well fall to us, it is very much a possibility.
Ultimately though I think he ends up going at #7 to the Denver Nuggets, but don't fall asleep on this kid if a couple of other players move up unexpectedly.
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NBA comparable: Gerald Wallace, Luol Deng
These were pretty easy I thought. High character guys who played big minutes, guarded the best, and scored in the mid teens every night for strong teams.
As always, the above is my opinion only, so please feel free to disagree.
Tbird
stretch 4.
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