Like his dunks, his career and his Suns, Cam Johnson is no one-hit wonder

Cam Johnson isn’t the first NBA player to use doubt as fuel, and he certainly won’t be the last. He’s not a household name, and at 25-and-a-half years old, he’ll be one of the oldest third-year players in the league next season.

But ever since James Jones traded down to the 11th overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft and shocked the world by taking the 6-foot-8 wing out of North Carolina, Phoenix Suns fans have been discovering what everyone else in his orbit has learned since his high school days: Cam Johnson is no one-trick pony.

It’s only fitting he’ll be playing with a Suns team that’ll be looking for prove the exact same thing next year.

CAM JOHNSON’S CAREER

When Johnson was selected several spots higher than almost every mock draft had him going, it was at least easy to see the appeal. As a knockdown shooter in college, he fit Jones’ preferred player archetype as a mature guy who had played on successful teams and could light it up from beyond the arc. There were questions about his defense, his health coming off hip surgery the year prior, and where he’d play on a roster that already had Mikal Bridges and Kelly Oubre Jr.

All his life, Johnson had been an accessory. Little did anyone know that in two years’ time, he’d become a necessity on an NBA Finals team.

“That happens naturally,” Johnson told PHNX Sports. “It happened in high school, it happened in college and it was a point where, earlier in my career at those levels, I was a guy that shot 3s, did what the coaches asked, tried not to be a liability and then pitch in on top of that. But as I grew at those levels, then I became the guy that did a lot more for the team.”

As much as people bemoaned the Suns passing on guys like Jarrett Culver and Brandon Clarke back on draft night, two years into their careers, Johnson definitively looks like the better player.

This past season, Cam upped his production to 9.6 points and 3.3 rebounds in 24 minutes per game. While his 3-point shooting dropped from 39 percent as a rookie to 34.9 percent on slightly increased volume, that was mostly due to a horrendous shooting slump in mid-April when he tried to play through a wrist injury that eventually sidelined him until the first game of the playoffs. Before mid-April, he was drilling 39.4 percent of his 3s. He closed out the regular season making only 15 of his last 76 attempts (19.7 percent), and it skewed his overall numbers.

Thankfully, the playoffs gave Cam Johnson and the rest of this young roster their chance to shine. While he only averaged 8.2 points in 21.1 minutes a night during that exciting run to the Finals, he shot a scorching 44.6 percent from 3-point range. Despite having an incredibly low usage of 12 percent, his points per 100 shots attempt skyrocketed from 112.4 in the regular season (46th percentile) to an unbelievable 138.6 in the postseason (100th percentile), per Cleaning The Glass.

By the time the NBA Finals rolled around, the Suns were hurting for offensive production, and Johnson had become a third or fourth option.

“I felt it in the Finals,” he said. “And it kind of coincides with a greater understanding of the game, a greater understanding of what it takes, learning and also just expanding skill-sets to certain areas.”

So what areas has Cam Johnson expanded his game since entering the league, and where does he still need to grow?

For starters, Johnson has already proven he’s more than just a one-dimensional spot-up shooter thanks to his defense. He’s also made small strides in diversifying his shot portfolio.

While Johnson was assisted on a whopping 92 percent of his shots in the regular season, per Cleaning The Glass, that number dropped on shots at the rim from 79 percent to 57 percent in the postseason. He showed a willingness to attack the basket, even if he wasn’t quite as efficient there in the postseason (64 percent shooting) as he was during the regular season (71 percent).

Even so, he upped his number of attempts at the rim, provided a signature Suns dunk in Game 3 of the Finals and still shot blistering percentages from deep. Seriously, look what he did in the postseason, per CTG:

• 65.7 eFG% (100th percentile)
• 54% on corner 3s (100th percentile)
• 37% on non-corner 3s (59th percentile)
• 46% on non-garbage time 3s (95th percentile)

Oh, and he also posted the fourth-highest true shooting percentage in NBA playoff history among all players who attempted at least 100 shots, according to Stathead.

“Shooting has always been kind of what I was able to always add as the accessory to a team,” Johnson said. “I could come in, I could hit shots, pitch in on rebounding, pitch in on defense, and that’s what I expected. And that’s obviously what I hoped out of my NBA career is when I stepped in at first: I would be able to do my baseline things, be able to do what I’ve always been able to pitch in as an accessory.

“But when it comes time to step up and become a necessity, the results — maybe if I became a little bit more of a necessity towards the Finals, that’s the result of two years of work every day behind the scenes, working on bringing things out and continuing to work on bringing things out in my game that I can continue to add to the team. So I expect as time goes on to be able to add more to that bag, be able to increase what my baseline of activity on the court looks like.”

Johnson still has a ways to go. He’s not much of a facilitator, averaging 1.4 assists per game last year. A whopping 63 percent of his shots came on 3-pointers in the postseason, so he’ll need to continue to progress as a more well-rounded player. Doing so would allow him and the Suns to capitalize on poor closeouts trying to run him off the 3-point line. That would open up a world of hurt for defenses trying to contain him, Devin Booker, Chris Paul and Mikal Bridges on the perimeter while Deandre Ayton dives to the rim.

But he showed positive signs of expanding his game last year, and not just with his soul-snatching dunk over P.J. Tucker. After shooting just 25 percent on shots in the short midrange (4-14 feet) as a rookie, Johnson doubled that number to 50 percent shooting in his second year, and then bumped it up again to a staggering 80 percent in the playoffs. That’s one sign of a 3-point shooter learning how to attack closeouts off the dribble, as well as make smart cuts and find his spots for catch-and-shoot looks within the gaps of a defense.

CAM JOHNSON’S DUNKS

We’d be remiss, however, it we continued to talk about Cam Johnson being more than a 3-point shooter without mentioning his freaky hops.

No, not sneaky hops. Freaky hops. Because no one should be shocked anymore when Johnson rises up with the highlight reel he’s starting to put together.

“People stay being surprised by this for some reason, I don’t know,” Johnson said, shaking his head. “I can jump off this left leg. Like, that’s something that I’ve had for a long time. It started when I started my growth spurt and I started being able to dunk, if somebody catches me at the wrong time jumping off this left leg, they’re in trouble.”

Just ask JaVale McGee, Cam’s new Suns teammate:

Johnson said McGee won’t be hearing about the dunk from him.

“I actually said I wasn’t gonna be the one to bring it up,” Johnson said. “I was talking to DA the other day, DA said he would bring it up. But you know, this stuff happens. I’m glad he went up to go get it. It gave me an opportunity there, so respect on that end.”

If Johnson respects people by dunking on them, he must be a HUGE fan of Jarrett Allen:

Jarrett Allen meet CAM JOHNSON!!! pic.twitter.com/db3J6Woxeh

— Bally Sports Arizona (@BALLYSPORTSAZ) May 5, 2021

“The Allen one in Cleveland, everybody was like, ‘Whoa, you don’t have that! Where did that –?’ and I’m like, ‘That wasn’t, like, anything extreme,'” Johnson said with a laugh. “They’re like acting as if I got lucky or I closed my eyes and made something up. Like, come on guys, give me a little credit!”

P.J. Tucker would probably give him credit, since he was on the receiving end of one of the most vicious dunks in Suns history. Tucker and the Milwaukee Bucks got the last laugh in Game 3 and in the series, but that poster — which Cam believes is the best dunk of his career, given the stage — will stand the test of time.

“I was just kind of a beneficiary of right time, right place, you know?” Johnson said. “I say this all the time, it’s not often you get a full runway down the court with nobody stopping you from getting to the rim. So for me, I’d have been kind of foolish not to try to take advantage of it.”

“Slam Johnson” may be putting quite a hit list together, but he’s not particular about who joins it next.

“No, there’s no wish list,” he confirmed. “I’ll take anybody. A poster on a point guard to me is just as satisfying as a poster on a center.”

Whatever the case, it’s high time people stopped acting surprised every time Johnson throws one down, because it’s going to happen a lot more moving forward.

CAM JOHNSON’S SUNS

Like Cam Johnson with his entire career and his penchant for throwing down unexpected dunks that shouldn’t really be unexpected, the Phoenix Suns are out to prove they can do more than they’re being credited for.

While a run to the NBA Finals pulled the Suns two mere wins away from eternal glory, national pundits couldn’t help focus on the good fortune that helped the stars align.

Like how Anthony Davis got hurt midway through the first-round series and LeBron James didn’t look like his typical self coming off an injury (despite the Los Angeles Lakers being favored as the 7-seed in that matchup and Chris Paul basically playing with one arm for most of the series).

Or how the Denver Nuggets were missing Jamal Murray and didn’t have Will Barton for a few games (despite the fact that they were swept and lost every single game in utterly dominant fashion).

Or how the LA Clippers would’ve beaten Phoenix in the conference finals if they had Kawhi Leonard because they had Devin Booker bottled up (despite the fact that he broke his nose in that series and injuries are part of the calculus with Leonard every year).

The story was always that the Suns were getting lucky. Their Finals run will be chalked up to a fun fluke by plenty of people, especially with the Lakers supposedly healthy and adding Russell Westbrook to the mix. But Phoenix has never been the type of team to look outward. Monty Williams’ group defined themselves by staying focused on their own growth — day by day, week by week, month by month.

“I definitely draw a lot of motivation, a lot of drive just from thinking back to when I was eight, 10, 12, 14, 16 and how much I hoped, wished, prayed to be in a situation like this,” Johnson said. “And now that I’m here, just taking advantage of it.

“And then you add on top of that the success of a team, being able to be part of something that’s bigger than myself, being able to be part of a Phoenix Suns team that, over the course of two years, kind of flipped our record around and went from a team that people didn’t take too seriously to a team that people take very seriously.”

Despite the pain that comes with falling two wins shy of an NBA championship, Johnson is taking the good with the bad when he reflects on that Finals run.

“You learn a lot about yourself, you learn a lot about the league, you learn a lot about what it takes to win,” he said. “Those lessons came with a lot of positives. A lot of positive experiences, a lot of experiences that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

“It hurts a lot not being able to come up with the ring on the finger, but it’s encouraging. We have a young team. I wouldn’t say we’ve hit our peak, I wouldn’t say it was a team that was a one-shot wonder; I think we’re a group that has been built to keep on striving to attain that postseason success and capture a championship. So it builds a lot of excitement going forward.”