Keldon Johnson is having a fantastic season
The Spurs young star is top 15 in 3PT% and has established himself as one of the teams best players
Dejounte Murray has been the best player on the Spurs this season. There is no denying that as he is a triple-double machine who plays elite defense. However, Murray’s “Robin” to his “Batman” of the Spurs young core, Keldon Johnson, has stepped up and continued to improve this year, giving the organization and its fans hope for the future alongside Murray. Lonnie Walker IV and Devin Vassell have also played fantastic this season and could join that core of the Spurs’ future as well very soon.
Nonetheless, Johnson’s accomplishments as an efficient two-way star have gotten overlooked because of Murray’s jaw-dropping stat lines and him being an All-Star. Johnson is averaging 15.9 points, 6 rebounds, and almost 1 steal per game this season with an eFG% of 54, TS% of 56.7, and a PER of 14.29.
Like I mentioned above, Johnson has also become one of the league’s best marksmen as his 3PT% of 41.3 ranks 15th in the NBA this season. Keldon Johnson is showing elite improvements in every facet of his game each season to start his young career.
In his rookie year, Johnson only played in 17 games and averaged 17.7 minutes per game, 9.1 points, and 3.4 rebounds per game. His advanced statistics for his rookie season don’t matter since it was such a small sample size because of him missing most of his rookie year.
From his sophomore year to this season Johnson improved his 33.1 3PT% from 2020-2021 by 8 percent, his scoring average of 12.8 by over 2 points, his eFG% of 52.2 by 2 percent, his TS% of 55.7 by 1 percent, and his PER of 13.86 by .5 of a percent all while having only a 1.3 percent increase in usg%(usage percentage) (18.6% in 2020-2021 to 19.9% in 2021-2022).
Johnson is continuing to steadily increase his performance as the season goes on, averaging 18.7 points and 5.5 rebounds per with a TS% of 57.6 and two 30+ point games during his last 15 games and is showing no signs of slowing down.
Despite having one of the best coaches of all time in Greg Popovich (who will break the all-time NBA wins record for a coach as soon as tomorrow), the Spurs simply don’t have the roster to compete yet. However, with one of the youngest rosters in the league, a 25-year-old All-Star in Dejounte Murray, and a 22-year-old up-and-coming star in Keldon Johnson, the Spurs already have a bright future ahead of them and the rebuild isn’t even close to being complete.