Phoenix Suns 2021-22 player previews: Cam Johnson could enjoy a breakout year with a few simple tweaks

It wasn’t long ago that Cam Johnson was the guy the Phoenix Suns “reached” for when they traded down in the 2019 NBA Draft. Two elongated seasons later, he’s a crucial part of their young core, and one that would be due for a breakout season if not for playing on a team that needs touches for Chris Paul, Devin Booker, Mikal Bridges and Deandre Ayton.

Unless Jae Crowder gets hurt or gets off to a brutal shooting start, it’s hard to see Johnson having the type of role that allows him to become a 15 points per game scorer this year. He’s more than just a shooter, but much like Ayton last year, the Suns don’t need him to take a ton of shots to be effective. If anything, they simply need him to maximize his role.

Last year’s playoffs provided a decent blueprint of what that looks like, as he made a notable leap as a reliable and consistent bench presence. By the time the NBA Finals rolled around, there were stretches where he was more of a third option than Bridges or Ayton.

“I felt it in the Finals, 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,” Johnson told PHNX. “Shooting has always been kind of what I was able to always add as the accessory to a team. 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.”

Everyone knows Johnson is a 3-point sniper, but what other elements of his game can he build upon to have a breakout year, even with the slight restrictions that come attached to a bench role?

A LOOK AT CAM JOHNSON SO FAR

In the regular season, Cam averaged 9.6 points in 24 minutes per game on 42 percent shooting from the field and 34.9 percent shooting from 3-point range. Those shooting numbers were shockingly low for a 3-point marksman of his caliber, but they were impacted by a wrist injury Johnson played through near the end of the season.

Before mid-April, he was shooting 39.4 percent from long range. His efficiency plummeted when he finished the year shooting 15-for-76 (19.7 percent) over his final 12 games. Once he sat out to let the wrist recuperate, the results were obvious, as Johnson shot a blistering 44.6 percent from deep in the playoffs.

Anyone questioning Cam Johnson’s 3-point touch based on last season’s numbers should look at his white-hot postseason instead. According to Stathead, he put up the fourth-highest true shooting percentage in NBA playoff history (minimum 100 field goal attempts) at 69.3 percent, and he did it despite only a 12 percent usage rate. His points per 100 shot attempts skyrocketed from 112.4 during the regular season (46th percentile) to a staggering 138.6 in the postseason (100th percentile), per Cleaning The Glass.

A shooter of that caliber has to be covered at all times, but Johnson earned an A- grade in “3-point shot quality” on The Bball Index because he’s so good at relocating, sneakily shifting his way around the 3-point line for better looks. Unlike a J.J. Redick or a Stephen Curry, who dart around the court constantly like Energizer Bunnies, Johnson slows down while running on the break to find the right opening, set his feet, and fire off that quick and deadly release. He was blistering hot from 3 no matter where the looks came from:

• Effective field goal percentage: 65.7 percent (100th percentile)
• Corner 3s: 54 percent (100th percentile)
• Non-corner 3s: 37 percent (56th percentile)
• Non-garbage time 3s: 46 percent (95th percentile)

That progression from being an accessory to a necessity was nothing new for Johnson.

“That happens naturally,” he said. “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.”

Shooting is not all Johnson brings to the table, however. He’s rapidly become an electric in-game dunker, adding JaVale McGee, Jarrett Allen and P.J. Tucker to his kill list.

“People stay being surprised by this for some reason,” Johnson lamented. “I can jump off this left leg. 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.”

It wasn’t just a few highlight posters here or there either. Johnson shot 69.2 percent around the rim last year — well above the league average of 58.3 percent, per NBA.com. He got better at attacking the rim on his own in the postseason too, going from 79 percent of his shots at the basket being assisted during the regular season to just 57 percent in the playoffs, per Cleaning The Glass.

And for a guy who was often asked to defend power forwards as a small-ball 4, Johnson was effective and seemingly immune to foul trouble. In fact, he only committed four or more fouls three times last year, and two of those games came in the playoffs. If that’s not striking enough, he was so foul-averse he only committed three fouls nine times all season. The Suns posting a +8.0 Net Rating with him in the 4-spot, compared to a +2.3 with him at the 3, proved he could effectively play that small-ball 4 role.

The question is, where can Cam Johnson improve on some of those already impressive numbers?

HOW CAN CAM JOHNSON TAKE THE NEXT STEP?

It feels like nitpicking, but if Johnson upgrades a few key areas of his game by about 5-10 percent this year, the Suns’ top-10 offense will be borderline unstoppable.

For starters, being healthy and not playing on an injured wrist should lead to a welcome return to form from downtown, since this is a guy who could very well lead the league in 3-point percentage at some point in his career. Improving on above-the-break 3s will be key this season, since Johnson only made 30 percent of those attempts last year.

Crashing the glass wouldn’t hurt either, since Cam checked out as a pretty effective offensive rebounder (93rd percentile) when he actually hit the boards. He just needs to do it more often, since he was only in the 30th percentile in offensive rebounds per 75 possessions.

The biggest area for improvement, however, is attacking the basket more frequently. Johnson’s conversion rate around the rim is stellar, but he doesn’t get to the rim very often. That’s something you’d expect from a guy who took 63 percent of his shots from beyond the arc, but if he can attack more hasty closeouts this year, it’d unlock an even more dangerous tier of Phoenix’s offense.

To his credit, Johnson has improved drastically as a pull-up shooter from the midrange. He went from shooting 25 percent on shots in the 4-14 feet range as a rookie to 50 percent last year (including 80 percent in the playoffs). That’s a pretty drastic jump in a short amount of time.

The Cam Johnson Stepback Revolution continues pic.twitter.com/pdFvMaeavl

— Kellan Olson (@KellanOlson) October 11, 2021

“It’s just continuous growth of being in this league, continuous growth of finding what you do and then improving on everything else around it,” Johnson said. “It’s been a lot of fun since day one in training camp in Flagstaff two years ago, and I feel a lot more comfortable today. So that’s the main thing for me is that comfort level, that ability that I know more of what’s going on and why things happen, but I can kinda get ahead and start playing the game a little bit, rather than being just so on edge, high-alert of every little thing.”

The problem is, for being such a prolific finisher, he didn’t attack the rim very much. The Bball Index shows a pretty stark contrast between his finishing ability and how often he actually put it to use:

• Contact finish rate: A (92nd percentile)
• Adjusted FG% at rim: A (92nd percentile)
• Shot quality at rim: A (98th percentile)
• Finishing at rim rating: A- (85th percentile)
• Getting to rim rating: F (13th percentile)

All of the signs point to Johnson being effective around the basket. He’s just got to get there a little more often.

Part of the reason is Johnson is a smart passer who likes to keep the ball moving, so many of his attacks on poor closeouts amounted to drive-and-kicks. The Suns don’t need Cam to be an elite playmaker, but it’s worth noting that despite his passing creation volume earning an F grade, he got an A- in passing creation quality. On another team, he might have gotten the chance to expand that area of his game a bit. On this team, he’s another intelligent cog in a well-oiled machine with a “we score” mentality.

That’s not a bad thing though, because Cam Johnson can be an elite role player who earns a big payday soon by just slightly improving some of these areas for growth while doing what he’s always done: hitting 3s, moving the ball, dunking hard on people and defending capably on the other end.

There are still a few minor areas for improvement, but it’s hard to see how many of them come to fruition bearing opportunity in mind. He could improve as a pull-up 3-point shooter after going 4-for-20 last year, but the Suns don’t need Cam to start launching 3s off the dribble. He was only in the 29th percentile as a pick-and-roll ball-handler and in the 12th percentile in isolations, but again, how often will he be tasked with those responsibilities?

Never count him out though, because Cam Johnson has been told all his life that he’s just a shooter, and he’s always used it as fuel.

“Hearing whatever somebody might say that I can’t do it, and then being able to do it for my own personal dreams and aspirations since I was a little kid, 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,” he said. “And now that I’m here, just taking advantage of it.”