With any 20 year old I think you're looking at potential more than production. Obviously nobody in the draft this year has played in the NBA yet so if you want to make a statistical comparison, look at what he did in his one season at Arizona and compare that to all of this year's super Freshmen. He had a higher WS/40 (.212) than any of the top SFs this year (Jackson .180, Isaac .205, Bridges .160, Tatum .169). Or you could look at TS% where they're all in the same ballpark (Johnson .551, Jackson .559, Isaac .614, Bridges .580, Tatum .566). Actually I'll just make this easy and post all of their advanced stats together and you can see if anything jumps out to you:
You'll probably want their shooting splits too:
................................FG%/3p%/FT%
Stanley Johnson........446/371/742
Josh Jackson..............513/378/566
Jayson Tatum............452/342/849
Jonathan Isaac..........508/348/780
Miles Bridges.............486/389/685
But! (people will argue) Stanley has been exposed as a fraud in the league already (37%!) while these other four players have superstar potential. Well, for one thing we don't know that -- we're projecting their potential as well. Stanley is 20 years old right now and so is Josh Jackson. Bridges is the youngest and he just turned 19 last week so age shouldn't be much of a factor. But personally, I think you can take all these fancy numbers and sweep them into the garbage. This may be seen as scandalous to some, but I've never had a statistical argument for why I like Stanley Johnson so much as a basketball player. By way of explanation, let me start with a story:
I had a bit of a revelation in 2011 when I was scouting Tristan Thompson for this board. He was projected in the mid to late lottery at the time, didn't have great size for a PF, and had a decent year at Texas but nothing that leaps off the page statistically. Then I watched game tape and I started to see a player who makes a lot of brilliant plays that will never show up in a boxscore. On offense he had the rough outline of a developing post game but what really impressed me is that he was an uncommonly smart defender, for lack of a better term. He was always in the right position to make a play on the ball, could help without losing track of his man, used every inch of his length effectively on the boards because he understood how to box out and create space for himself under the basket. You had to get deep into the tape to see all of this and focus your attention on him on every play. Prior to that point in time I don't think I even had the experience to understand what I was watching. But there it was on tape for anyone who wanted to put in the time.
I remember thinking that I'd uncovered something that most people were missing and had him ranked higher on my board than any of the expert mocks. Clearly that wasn't the case though as Cleveland made him the 4th overall pick in that draft. There were a lot of confused reactions but I understood. They had watched the tape too and seen the same things that I saw. Four years later Thompson got an $82 million dollar contract from Cleveland and people were confused again. This guy had just wrapped up a season where he averaged 8.5 points and 8 rebounds per game. What the hell is Cleveland doing? What they were doing was contending for a championship. Lebron said "we need this guy" and the front office made it happen. I forget this at times in my attempts to make a point but people who know basketball don't need stats to do their arguing for them and there's no combination of words that could replace simply watching the tape.
So back to Stanley Johnson. Every time I watch Stanley Johnson it hurts me that he's not playing for the Kings. We had a chance to draft him and passed. A few of us have cultivated the "cult of Stanley" over the years much to the consternation of others who don't "get it" but it really just comes down to game tape. Watch this guy play defense, it's an absolute clinic. Does everything show up in a boxscore? Not even close. Can he single-handily swing a game with his defense? Not yet. But give me 5 players who can play defense like Stanley Johnson can and I'll show you the San Antonio Spurs.
And this guy hasn't even played for Popovich yet! No wonder the Spurs were trying to nab him early in the season. In an alternate universe where heady defense headlines Sportscenter highlight reels rather than dunks, crossovers and step back threes this guy is already a star.
He's only been a disappointment for people who saw him dominate Summer League as a scorer and expected that to carry over into the NBA sooner than it has. As I said before, I'm not worried about him offensively. He's got the tools he needs to be effective he just needs to develop them. I don't expect him to be a 20ppg anyway, though he's probably capable of that. I think 17-18 ppg with inconsistent percentages year to year and All-NBA level defense is a damn fine player though. As quickly as the fans here fell in love with Garrett Temple, I think you'd see a similar reaction to the Stanimal if people actually watched him play here for 82 games. Kings fans get a lot of grief, mostly because of our front office's blundering, but these fans know good basketball when they see it. Detroit has a lot of issues right now so the search is on for appropriate scapegoats (sound familiar?) -- I think you'll find that the less reactionary among them are dreading a Stanley Johnson trade.
You'll probably want their shooting splits too:
................................FG%/3p%/FT%
Stanley Johnson........446/371/742
Josh Jackson..............513/378/566
Jayson Tatum............452/342/849
Jonathan Isaac..........508/348/780
Miles Bridges.............486/389/685
But! (people will argue) Stanley has been exposed as a fraud in the league already (37%!) while these other four players have superstar potential. Well, for one thing we don't know that -- we're projecting their potential as well. Stanley is 20 years old right now and so is Josh Jackson. Bridges is the youngest and he just turned 19 last week so age shouldn't be much of a factor. But personally, I think you can take all these fancy numbers and sweep them into the garbage. This may be seen as scandalous to some, but I've never had a statistical argument for why I like Stanley Johnson so much as a basketball player. By way of explanation, let me start with a story:
I had a bit of a revelation in 2011 when I was scouting Tristan Thompson for this board. He was projected in the mid to late lottery at the time, didn't have great size for a PF, and had a decent year at Texas but nothing that leaps off the page statistically. Then I watched game tape and I started to see a player who makes a lot of brilliant plays that will never show up in a boxscore. On offense he had the rough outline of a developing post game but what really impressed me is that he was an uncommonly smart defender, for lack of a better term. He was always in the right position to make a play on the ball, could help without losing track of his man, used every inch of his length effectively on the boards because he understood how to box out and create space for himself under the basket. You had to get deep into the tape to see all of this and focus your attention on him on every play. Prior to that point in time I don't think I even had the experience to understand what I was watching. But there it was on tape for anyone who wanted to put in the time.
I remember thinking that I'd uncovered something that most people were missing and had him ranked higher on my board than any of the expert mocks. Clearly that wasn't the case though as Cleveland made him the 4th overall pick in that draft. There were a lot of confused reactions but I understood. They had watched the tape too and seen the same things that I saw. Four years later Thompson got an $82 million dollar contract from Cleveland and people were confused again. This guy had just wrapped up a season where he averaged 8.5 points and 8 rebounds per game. What the hell is Cleveland doing? What they were doing was contending for a championship. Lebron said "we need this guy" and the front office made it happen. I forget this at times in my attempts to make a point but people who know basketball don't need stats to do their arguing for them and there's no combination of words that could replace simply watching the tape.
So back to Stanley Johnson. Every time I watch Stanley Johnson it hurts me that he's not playing for the Kings. We had a chance to draft him and passed. A few of us have cultivated the "cult of Stanley" over the years much to the consternation of others who don't "get it" but it really just comes down to game tape. Watch this guy play defense, it's an absolute clinic. Does everything show up in a boxscore? Not even close. Can he single-handily swing a game with his defense? Not yet. But give me 5 players who can play defense like Stanley Johnson can and I'll show you the San Antonio Spurs.
And this guy hasn't even played for Popovich yet! No wonder the Spurs were trying to nab him early in the season. In an alternate universe where heady defense headlines Sportscenter highlight reels rather than dunks, crossovers and step back threes this guy is already a star.He's only been a disappointment for people who saw him dominate Summer League as a scorer and expected that to carry over into the NBA sooner than it has. As I said before, I'm not worried about him offensively. He's got the tools he needs to be effective he just needs to develop them. I don't expect him to be a 20ppg anyway, though he's probably capable of that. I think 17-18 ppg with inconsistent percentages year to year and All-NBA level defense is a damn fine player though. As quickly as the fans here fell in love with Garrett Temple, I think you'd see a similar reaction to the Stanimal if people actually watched him play here for 82 games. Kings fans get a lot of grief, mostly because of our front office's blundering, but these fans know good basketball when they see it. Detroit has a lot of issues right now so the search is on for appropriate scapegoats (sound familiar?) -- I think you'll find that the less reactionary among them are dreading a Stanley Johnson trade.
