Detroit Pistons: Stanley Johnson Growing More Comfortable
By David Hughes
In what appears to be a stacked rookie class at this early point in the NBA season, Stanley Johnson was considered to be a prime Rookie of the Year candidate coming into the season, even among the likes of guys like Karl-Anthony Towns and Jahlil Okafor.
Although most were excited on draft night when the Detroit Pistons used their ninth overall selection to draft him (the Detroit vs. Everybody declaration certainly helped), Johnson’s play in the Orlando Summer League and preseason raised people’s expectations even further. He was consistently mentioned as one of the best players in either Summer League and followed that up with a very productive preseason.
Stanley didn’t exactly hit the ground running at the start of the regular season, though, as he struggled to figure out his role offensively and was 2-for-11 from distance through the first six games of the season.
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In addition to the perimeter shooting woes, Johnson wasn’t effective on drives to the basket and simply put, was having issues getting comfortable and finding his role within the offense. Certainly, nobody was panicking about a guy who doesn’t even turn 20 until the end of May, but for this current version of the Pistons to be successful, they’ll need Stanley Johnson to be a contributing piece.
After the 5-1 start, the Pistons have now lost their last three games, with the last two being a bit more disappointing than the first that everyone expected at the hands of the still unbeaten Golden State Warriors. The games at Sacramento and against a shorthanded Clippers squad were wins that could’ve been had.
But during the three-game losing streak, Stanley Johnson has emerged and begun to look more and more like the player who had numerous people making Rookie of the Year predictions for him before the season.
His best performance was in the hostile environment at Oracle Arena, putting up 20 points on 9-for-14 from the field. On Saturday against the Clippers, his nine-point second quarter helped the bench put up one of its best quarters of the entire season, as at the time, it looked like the Pistons were going to make light work of a Clippers squad without Chris Paul and J.J. Redick (before Blake Griffin and Jamal Crawford happened).
Check out Stanley here, using his strength and muscle here against the much smaller Austin Rivers to finish at the rim.
Stanley uses a quick first to step to penetrate against Rivers, then from there it’s all upper body strength as he’s able to finish easily with the much smaller Rivers draped all over him. Johnson creates this mismatch against many perimeter players in the league who’ll guard him this season.
Prior to that in that same second quarter, he was able to swipe an Austin Rivers pass intended for Jamal Crawford and take it the other way for a slam.
We’ve seen him do this a few times already this season, and his ability to run the floor in general, along with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope‘s, can make the Pistons dangerous when they do decide to try and get out and run.
Again, Stanley Johnson is just 19 years old and there will continue to be growing pains this season and beyond, but among them will be the flashes of brilliance that are starting to become more regular as his rookie season progresses.
Despite the athleticism, he’s still not quite there yet on or off the ball defensively, as he’s struggled to stay in front of certain wings so far this season, and his perimeter jumper is very much still a work in progress and likely will be for at least the first year or two of his career.
However, there’s no doubt in anybody’s mind at this point that Stanley will put in all of the work necessary to get the most out of his already special skill set. Even with the occasional the struggles that basically every young player goes through, Pistons fans have already gotten glimpses of the type of player that Johnson could potentially turn into as Stan Van Gundy attempts to put the right pieces in place.