Welcome Cam Johnson

[1Sun]

Cam was significantly better than both Washington and Herro in WAR based on 538's stats.

Cam = +1.6 WAR
Herro = +0.6 WAR
Washington = -0.2 WAR

Clarke was a bit better at +2.4 WAR, however he was featured much more prominently on his team from early on in the season.

Cam came on late in the season and I have no doubt would have had a similar or better WAR than Clarke if he started the whole year. Cam was significantly better in the bubble.



Now lets do your track record and predictions, how do they hold up on Cam? We'll wait.

Thank you for that. Again, I am coming around on Cam and see him potentially as a nice 7th or 8th man, but I still would much rather have Clarke.

 

[Dr. Jones]

I don't care about what the others ranked. Not only was I wrong about Cam..... After the bubble ended, I was dead wrong.

I think this kid is about to become one of the best long range assassins in the NBA. Just keep working on your defense bro, you and Mikal could be insane together with Book and DA.

 

[95pro]

I don't care about what the others ranked. Not only was I wrong about Cam..... After the bubble ended, I was dead wrong.

I think this kid is about to become one of the best long range assassins in the NBA. Just keep working on your defense bro, you and Mikal could be insane together with Book and DA.

DA could be our 5th best player if he doesn't improve

 

[Hoop Head]

Cam was significantly better than both Washington and Herro in WAR based on 538's stats.

Cam = +1.6 WAR
Herro = +0.6 WAR
Washington = -0.2 WAR

Clarke was a bit better at +2.4 WAR, however he was featured much more prominently on his team from early on in the season.

Cam came on late in the season and I have no doubt would have had a similar or better WAR than Clarke if he started the whole year. Cam was significantly better in the bubble.



Now lets do your track record and predictions, how do they hold up on Cam? We'll wait.

I know Cam's 3pt shooting % was higher than Washington and Herro and so was his PER, TS%, and eFG%. I don't have the numbers in front of me anymore though, BB Reference only lets you compare 2 players at a time so it's a bit of a pain. He was behind Clarke in PER and shooting % but they played totally different roles for their team. If Clarke stayed at the 3pt line with 80% of his attempts being 3's then I suspect it'd look quite different.

 

[Raze]

The problem with calling him a reach is that it presumes all the prognosticator drafts actually reflect the draft value of the player. It also assumes that teams somehow follow a roughly uniform player valuationz. Neither is true. When you are an NBA team drafting you have to do the work yourself and trust your own draft board regardless of what draft gurus and fans think. No GM gets it exactly right. It you can build a truly great team being mostly right. James Jones did that and it’s pretty gutsy for a rookie GM.

It's not that I disagree, it's just that under these parameters fans could never use the word "reach" to describe any player since they don't have access true draft value or each team's player evaluation. We would rest on more solid factual ground if we disallowed the use of the word "reach" (or "steal for that matter). However, I prefer to keep those words so I can continue to be an arm chair quarterback.

In order for us to use terms like "reach" we have to agree that's it's truly a best guess based on limited information (ie. prognosticators' mock drafts).

As for JJ being a gutsy GM, I totally agree. At the time of the draft I erroneously said "JJ is either proving he's in over his head, or he's a trend setter. I'm not banking on the latter." I was clearly wrong. He is a trend setter.

Couldn't be happier with JJ and Monty.

 

[JCSunsfan]

I don't care about what the others ranked. Not only was I wrong about Cam..... After the bubble ended, I was dead wrong.

I think this kid is about to become one of the best long range assassins in the NBA. Just keep working on your defense bro, you and Mikal could be insane together with Book and DA.

The thing that surprises about Cam is his mobility and strength. He added size and maintained mobility making him a decent defensive player as a rookie which is rare. Most looked at his hip surgery and thought "injury prone" when in fact the surgeries corrected a congenital issue and have allowed him to be more athletic than many thought possible.

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

It's not that I disagree, it's just that under these parameters fans could never use the word "reach" to describe any player since they don't have access true draft value or each team's player evaluation.

But it is true isn't it? Fans love to give their opinions on things, but it is almost always an uninformed opinion or at least one that comes from limited information.

People can feel free to give their opinion and call a pick a reach, but the truth is that the professional team almost always has more information to base their selection off of than the fans have and that means they are more likely to come away with the right guy.

You could point to all the times that a franchise took a player that people called a reach and they failed, but I would bet that there is probably just as many times that teams have "reached" and the pick panned out.

 

[JerkFace]

https://valleytales.substack.com/p/cam-johnsons-rookie-diary-unpredictable

It’s a good read.

 

[Hoop Head]

https://valleytales.substack.com/p/cam-johnsons-rookie-diary-unpredictable

It’s a good read.

Worth noting previous entries are linked at the end of that article, those links take you to The Athletic and they are NOT behind a pay wall so I'm catching up on those. Good read, thanks for sharing it here.

 

[1Sun]

He is a terrific person. Can't take that away from him.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Kid has a good head in his shoulders.

 

[Yuma]

I always thought he would be good. However, the fast rate at how he improved, I was really excited to see! He improved 100% in his first season.

 

[JerkFace]

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https://theathletic.com/2436746/


6. Cameron Johnson, Phoenix (actual pick: 11th): Well, isn’t that ironic. Phoenix originally had the sixth pick in this draft but traded back to 11 and selected Johnson, a pick that was hugely panned at the time due to his advanced age for a lottery pick. (Johnson turns 25 this week. He played against Yogi Ferrell, Malcolm Brogdon and Brice Johnson in college. He’s two years older than Jayson Tatum. He owns and uses a land-line phone, writes hand-written letters and does all his banking in-person.)

Historically, drafting older players usually hasn’t ended well, but the 2019 draft is turning out to be an anomaly: It’s already clear this was an amazing draft for old guys, starting with Hunter above and continuing to several undrafted players. Johnson is a sweet shooter at both forward spots who moves well on D and figures to be long-term piece as a fourth or fifth starter, while the medical questions about him entering the draft haven’t cropped up as a problem.

 

[RockinDaMike]

Hilarious reading this thread from the top


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[WhyAlwaysMe]

Now post the same rankings for Brandon Clarke, P.J. Washington and Tyler Herro...

Hollinger had Cam ranked above all three of them in his recent 2019 re-draft.

 

[Ouchie-Z-Clown]

Yup pretty entertaining. He’s so much better than we expected that he’s now disappointing us that he hasn’t taken off even more.