Stanley Johnson was mistaken for Patrick McCaw shortly after he signed with the Raptors, and he acknowledged his physical similarity to OG Anunoby. With that being said, he came to Toronto to make a name for himself. Looking to reclaim his spot in the league, and chart a course to a longer career within the NBA. He’s personable in interviews, likeable as hell, but how will he do on the court?
Before we could conceptualize what a Kevin Durant type of player would look like, Johnson’s build and athletic profile would be the ideal blueprint for an NBA player. Johnson is built like a running back, having packed 245 pounds onto a 6’5″ frame with a near 7-foot wingspan. All that, and he can jump out of the gym, too. It’s the other pieces of the game that have eluded Johnson’s toolset. A lack of creation and jump-shot. He’s not shifty or crafty, and most of his drives against set defenses end up with a slow euro-step and an awkward push-shot, or a bail-out pass.
*With the side cleared out and no help-side, Johnson is able to bully players of the same position under the basket because of his immense strength*
*A spectacular finish, yes, but difficult and not easily replicated. Keep this footwork in mind, because you’re going to see A LOT of this move this year.
This lack of creation (and quite frankly explosion in the in-between game) is what makes an elite athlete shoot under 40-percent from the floor for his career, and less than 60-percent (!) at the rim. Johnson gets caught in no-mans-land far too often and hasn’t fully developed his game off the ball. This is likely the most worrisome aspect of his game, because if he wasn’t able to find the soft spots in the defense while working off of Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond (Drummond is a good passer, Griffin is top-tier) the likelihood of him finding a niche in sets that feature Marc Gasol’s “elbow offense” seem slim.
Why did Ujiri take the flyer on Johnson, then? Well, despite his trouble translating his physical prowess to success on the offensive end, Johnson is a tenacious defender. He’s big, he’s long, and his motor doesn’t wear out on that end of the floor. Not to mention he can get after a point-to-wing pass at the same rate as Anunoby.
There’s basically a zero-percent chance that Johnson won’t be a plus on the defensive end for the Raptors. He’s a menace when he’s lurking on the weak-side and he can square up against some of the league’s most potent scorers. The Raptors won a championship last year relying on a rotation that had no weak spots on defense. A team that could be changeable and aggressive with their matchups, Johnson adds to that versatility and pedigree.
Is there anyway Johnson can add passable offense to his generally great defense? There’s always a chance, and Johnson did cite the Raptors development as a large reason for coming to the team:
“Just seeing what they’ve done with guys like Pascal and DeMar DeRozan, Fred VanVleet and Kyle Lowry, I’d definitely like to add my name to that list of players who’ve got a lot better and has shown improvement. So for me that was really big and I think they’ve done the best job at making homegrown players better year to year.” – Stanley Johnson
Over the course of Johnson’s career he’s taken more shots from 3-point land than any other specific spot on the floor. It’s obvious enough that, that was incentivized from the Top-down with the Pistons and Pelicans, despite the fact that Johnson struggled with that shot at the NBA level. The existing logic is also that 3-point percentage normalizes around 750 attempts, and that’s the type of shooter you will likely be going forward. Johnson eclipsed that number last year, and sits at roughly 29-percent from downtown over his career. Hoping for his 3-point shot to ameliorate to league average levels doesn’t seem like too big of an ask when considering the Raptors vaunted development team, but we should know that it is statistically unlikely.
The reasons to believe that Johnson can progress on offense would be as follows:
- No one can ever predict whether a player is done growing their game, and work that we don’t see being put in determines a lot of what we end up seeing at game time.
- He’ll be introduced to a new system under Nick Nurse, a system that could better address his strengths and help mute some of his shortcomings on offense.
- Kyle Lowry will be the best shot-creator that he has played with yet in his career, and players typically play well next to Lowry, regardless of anything else.
Anunoby is more than likely going to occupy the starting small forward spot, and rightly so. However, there should be lots of minutes to go around on the wings for the Raptors this year, and Johnson has an opportunity to re-assert himself in a league that seems nearly ready to give up on him. Evidenced by his comments earlier, he recognizes this and knows how important this year is. Let’s see how it goes.
Have a blessed day.
