“He’s been great. He understands. I spoke to him briefly earlier, he understands that when DeMar came back, somebody’s minutes was going to decrease,”
– Dwane Casey on James Johnson’s lack of minutes, January 29th
That notion that James Johnson’s lack of playing time was down to DeMar DeRozan’s return is a myth ready to be debunked on its own. Prior to DeRozan’s injury against the Mavericks in November, JJ was averaging just over 18 minutes per game. At the time of Casey’s above quote, those minutes had dropped to 11.4 per game since DeMar’s return against the 76ers.
The drastic change in time-distribution didn’t have so much to do with DeMar’s return, but to accommodate Greivis Vasquez who’s emerged back to his old form. It was indeed Vasquez who benefited most from James Johnson’s demotion during those stretch of games. Vasquez is averaging 8.8 more minutes now since DeMar’s return than he was prior to DeMar’s injury in November.
The experiment to reduce James Johnson’s minutes after DeMar’s return spanned about nine games (not factoring in the games he was inactive due to injury). The Raptors went 6-2 when Johnson played less than 15 minutes. All six wins came against teams with a sub .500 record. The two loses came against the Pelicans and Grizzlies. The debate to play JJ against both of those teams has been beaten to death, so we won’t go there.
Amidst all those games, James Johnson played over 15 minutes just once – it was in the blowout loss to Atlanta at home. That’s deceiving. In 26 minutes, James Johnson was one of only three Raptors who didn’t have a negative net rating in that game. He also shot 7/11 from the floor and tied Jonas for a team-high six rebounds.
Most recently James Johnson bounced back from injury to lift the Raptors with two huge wins against two Western Conference foes where he shot a combined 15/17 from the floor.
That’s astounding. Even if it’s a small sample size, it’s astounding.
His shooting percentage in the past two games is no fluke, it’s actually a manifestation of his entire season which proves he has taken good shots all year. Among all players in the league (not just qualified), JJ ranks 16th in FG% at 61%. Obviously, the longer the range, the worse his shooting percentage is; but around the basket he’s an absolute stud. Once Johnson gets inside the restricted area, he converts 71% of his attempts.
Beyond that, he helps the team. Johnson has the fourth best PER on the team after Lowry, Jonas, and Lou. Players like Lou put up good stats against opposing bench players. On the flip-side, although Johnson is typically a bench player, he gets a lot of his stats against some of the most elite players in the league. Take Friday’s game against the Clippers as an example. While Blake Griffin and the Clips’ were rolling in the early-goings of the game, James Johnson came in and stopped the bleeding by putting a body on Griffin and making it difficult for him on the offensive end.
Against the Spurs it was more of the same. As a starter, Johnson held Kawhi Leonard to just 5/17 from the floor.
His defense in general is just something to be reckoned with. Among all qualified players on the roster, Johnson has the best defensive rating on the team at 104.
“It gives us a physical presence with him in there,” Casey said. “I was worried about his minutes but he was OK. We were keeping an eye on that but he came through with flying colours. I thought he did an admirable job defensively and he got that big rebound for us at the end. That’s what we need him to do in that position — make those gritty plays.”
Currently, JJ has started eight games this season, and the Raptors are 5-3 in those games. Only one of those games have been since DeMar’s return – the other seven have been when the Raptors weren’t at full strength. What I would love to see is for Dwane Casey to keep rolling with this experiment, if only to have a more accurate statistical analysis of just how much he makes this team better with a bigger role.
