KJ (Johnson) has always piqued our curiosity, including his high-elevation shooting, passion for the game and excellent physical condition enough to make screeners worry. The following season following the bubble league, KJ scored 26 points and hit 5 three-pointers in the fifth game of the season once morest the defending Lakers. Note…
Keldon Johnson has shown enough that he shouldn’t be the team’s first option, but he should definitely be part of the Spurs’ future plans.
In July 2018, the Spurs traded Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green to the Toronto Raptors for DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl and a first-round pick. With the 29th pick in the draft, the Spurs later selected Keldon Johnson.
Considering the team’s overall plan, 80% of his rookie season went exactly according to plan, and he played very little. Across the first 59 games of his rookie season, he racked up roughly 40 minutes total. Then in the spring of 2020, the world was turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately, the league bubble started five months later, and over the course of a few weeks in the fall of 2020, Johnson put a lot of attention on him with three 20-plus-point games.
KJ (Johnson) has always piqued our curiosity, including his high-elevation shooting, passion for the game and excellent physical condition enough to make screeners worry. The following season following the bubble league, KJ scored 26 points and hit 5 three-pointers in the fifth game of the season once morest the defending Lakers. attention.
In his first three seasons, 200 games, 13,105 possessions, 6,328 minutes and 3,468 points (16.8 ppg), Keldon shot league-average (35.5 percent) from the perimeter and had a true shooting percentage close to League average (56.4%).
By every metric, Johnson is good for a young player. It’s also hard to find an analyst who would rank him outside the top 10 in a redraft, and Spurs fans would rate him even higher. So, once once more, the Spurs took a lottery talent with the 29th pick, joining Derrick White and Dejounte Murray before that.
But it’s not all plain sailing, as the Spurs’ goals have changed. The Spurs won 47 games that season before KJ was drafted, and those wins have steadily declined since.
Moreover, this decline in wins is purposeful. The management has gradually traded the main players in front of KJ since his rookie season, and with each transaction, more and more burdens are transferred to him. body. DeRozan departed for Chicago in August 2021, Derrick White was traded to Boston in February 2022, Dejounte Murray was sent to Atlanta in June 2022, and finally, Jakob Poeltl returned to Toronto this season.
When a player shows potential, the team must reevaluate his abilities. If a player shoots 38 percent from 3-point range on 4 attempts per game, what happens when he takes 6? What regarding 8 times? The average usage rate for the league’s rotation players is 20 percent. And what regarding players with a usage rate of 25.0 (like Jamal Murray and Tyler Herro)? What regarding players with a usage rate of 30 (eg, De’Aaron Fox and Anthony Edwards)? What regarding at 35? (Giannis and Luka.)
On paper, higher usage comes with higher turnovers, and true shooting percentage (equivalent to points per field goal) will be well below league average.
This season will be an opportunity for KJ to explore his developmental abilities as seniors he can rely on don the jerseys in different cities one by one. To the excitement of Spurs fans, his long-distance shooting and court understanding have reached new heights to start the season.
Through 14 games this season, he’s second only to Curry in 3-point percentage, shooting 42.3 percent with a usage rate of 27.8. KJ’s true shooting percentage is over 60%, and he averaged 22.7 points per game on 8.8 three-point attempts. It also made the Spurs fans cheer, and the Spurs’ road to tanks doesn’t seem to be that bad.
As the season progressed, however, it would be an understatement to say KJ’s good times didn’t last, as the slump that followed was abysmal. Over the next 11 games, KJ’s outside shooting dropped to a league-worst 21.5 percent (the lowest among players with at least five attempts per game).
He also had the worst true shooting percentage in this segment (42.1 percent). Interestingly, Keldon’s usage rate has gradually increased (from 27.8 to 30.3). His two-point attempts per game increased from 8.1 to 13.5, while his outside attempts dropped from 8.8 to 6.5 per game. KJ averaged four more shots per game, but his scoring average dropped from 22.7 points to 19.1 points per game. The higher workload came with lower efficiency.
