Chris McCosky of the Detroit News has noted in his last two blog posts that he and Flip Saunders are confused at the amount of attention Amir Johnson has received from fans. On Sunday he said:
Saunders, like the rest of us, is mystified at how much attention Johnson is getting, both from the media and fans. “Thirteen years ago, I had Kevin Garnett and at that time he was the first guy to come into the league from high school in like 20 years. Amir has gotten more publicity this year, a guy who’s never played, than Garnett did that first year, and here’s a guy who was the first high school guy in 20 years.”
I think it’s safe to say that Saunders is either relying on hyperbole to make a point or employing a bit of revisionist history. From the New York Times on June 29, 1995, the day after Garnett was drafted fifth overall:
Though [Joe] Smith was No. 1, no prize seemed more revered than Garnett, the 6-10 senior who attended his high school prom only three weeks ago. Less than a month ago he announced his decision to forego college, and the flurry of interest that followed was dizzying.
Much finagling and last-minute jockeying for the right to draft Garnett was taking place Tuesday night and early this morning, but the league’s 2 P.M. trading deadline passed without a major deal being struck. [Isiah] Thomas of the Raptors was just one of several general managers who insisted that Garnett had more talent and ability than any of his peers.
From another NY Times article the next day:
“Garnett’s got everybody going, “Whoa,’ ” [George] Karl said. “A lot of people say he has a Connie Hawkins and Julius Erving flair. That’s strong, huh?”
Is there more interest in Amir than your average bench warmer? Definitely. Does it even approach the hysteria surrounding Garnett as a rookie? No. No, no, no. And no.
Today, McCosky again chastised fans for expecting too much:
On another issue: Let’s back off of Amir Johnson for a bit, OK? I don’t know what some people expect from this kid, but he’s not Magic Johnson. He’s not ready to be in the regular rotation and contribute 25 to 30 minutes a game. He’s not going to be ready all year, is my guess. This isn’t the Pistons’ version of Cameron Maybin. Nobody’s ever said he was the greatest prospect ever to come through the pike. He was the 56th pick in the draft, taken right out of high school. He wasn’t the first overall pick. He’s an extremely athletic but extremely raw kid. He is active and he can finish around the basket. He can block shots and run the floor. But other than that, he’s still finding his way (on the court and off it). For now and for the foreseeable future, he’s the 11th or 12th man this year getting mostly just spot minutes.
I don’t think the fans want him to be the next Kevin Garnett or Magic Johnson — just the current Amir Johnson will do, for the reasons McCosky himself laid out.
Johnson has impressed on the court nearly every chance he’s had. Of his play in the D-League last year, a reporter in Sioux Falls said “every game he makes at least one play that leaves you speaking in tongues.” And Mo McHone, his coach last year with the SkyForce, said “I just don’t see how he’s not putting in minutes [for Detroit]. I think he’s one of the best fullcourt big men I’ve seen play.”
We know the Pistons think highly of him: last January, George David, the Pistons director of scouting, admitted that, “Amir might be the only untouchable in the league who’s on the inactive roster,” and Keith Langlois, the editor of Pistons.com, speculated that, “It’s possible that Johnson will become the first player to whom Dumars offers a maximum contract.”
And even though Johnson was drafted 56th overall in 2005, a lot of people, McCosky’s co-worker Rob Parker included, think he would have been a lottery pick in last June’s draft had he gone to college for two years instead:
“Johnson, just 20 years old, has to be looked at as almost a lottery pick. That’s probably what he would have been had he gone to college for two years and not come to the NBA out of high school.”
But it’s not just what other people have said about Johnson that has gotten fans excited: it’s what we’ve seen with our own eyes. His first NBA points came on a windmill dunk, and the first time he was given meaningful minutes as a rookie, he scored 18 points in 18 minutes without missing a single shot. And in last year’s regular-season finale against Boston’s ballyhooed Al Jefferson, he scored 20 with 12 boards, three steals and four blocks.
Yes, the bulk of his production has come against questionable competition in an inferior league as well as meaningless end-of-season games, but you play the games that are on the schedule, and you play the minutes that the coach gives you — a lesson Darko Milicic never really learned while he was here. But unlike Darko (and more recently, Carlos Delfino), Johnson has never publicly complained or otherwise resented the opportunities that have come his way.
Is it strange for fans to be so excited about a kid who hasn’t proven himself? Perhaps to someone in the trenches concerned about winning (or reporting) one game at a time, but from afar I think it’s only natural for fans to occasionally step back and admire the big picture.
Part of what makes Johnson so intriguing as a player is because we don’t know what his ceiling is, which can’t be said about any of the starters. We know the veteran core is good enough to carry the team deep into the playoffs — we’ve seen it happen five years in a row. But the starting lineup is also full of guys playing at their peak or slightly just past — who’s going to carry the torch next year, and the year after?
With any luck, it’s going to be Johnson, and Jason Maxiell, Rodney Stuckey and Arron Afflalo (and maybe, just maybe, Cheikh Samb). But we don’t know for sure, because with the exception of Maxiell, we just haven’t seen those guys get extended minutes. For the rookies, that’s to be expected. But for Johnson, I’d expect him to be something more than the 11th or 12th man in his third year in the league — and it sounds like Joe Dumars does, too. In September, Johnson told the Sporting News:
“I am going to play,” Johnson says. “Joe Dumars tells me constantly, ‘This is your year. There will be no DNPs this year.’ “
Granted, Johnson has had a few DNPs already this year, but that’s because he missed almost the entire preseason with the ankle injury and opened the year with related Achilles soreness. But Dumars reiterated what Johnson’s role would be on the team during a recent interview with Langlois on Pistons.com:
No – he won’t be the odd man out. He’ll get his opportunity this year. I’ve talked to him several times, Flip Saunders has talked to him several times about how much we’re going to depend on him this year. It’s an extremely long season and we wanted to make sure he didn’t get emotionally down, because with an injury like this it can take a while to get back to full strength. He had never been through this before, so we have been constantly talking to him about continuing to work hard, that we have tremendous confidence in you and your time is going to come where we’re going to put you on the court and you’re going to have to compete the way you see Maxey and Sheed and Dice are.
Now that Johnson is back (or extremely close) to full strength, we’re seeing Saunders give him opportunities: he played the entire fourth quarter on Friday and saw five minutes with the starters in the second quarter on Sunday. I’m content with that, and I imagine most fans are, too, especially since his minutes will come at the expense of Maxiell, a fan-favorite in his own right.
But if Johnson is consistently given five minutes here, seven minutes there, a dozen minutes now and then, I have a hunch he’ll force his way into a larger role next year, just like Maxiell did last season. All players need to earn their opportunities, but first they need to be given a chance.
wow..great peice.
I think i fall into alot of the pre-mature hype he gets and when that happens, you expect things right away from him. I’m not going to bash him if he has a down night because he is really in a learning situation. I just hope Flip Saunders has enough faith in him to play him more and more through-out the year.
While I think most of the predictions for the Pistons bench are overblown, I see no evidence that Johnson is not the real deal. In 140 NBA minutes, Amir has posted a player efficiency rating of about 20. His per/40 averages are 15.6 ppg, 10.5 rpg and 3.6 bpg.
That’s a small sample size, but his body of work suggests that he deserves an opportunity to prove whether those numbers are legitimate. It’s one thing if you don’t want to drop a slew of games waiting for a player to develop, but shouldn’t we at least determine whether that will be the case?
He isn’t the next Kevin Garnett, but what if he is able to play at a Tyson Chandler level? Could you imagine inserting that kind of weapon into the rotation?
I say if Aldridge grabs 20 in the first half, the Pistons see what Amir can do…
Excellent piece. Evidently, McCosky thinks that setting fans straight with his dour sense of authority is a good way to fill blog posts. Does this guy even enjoy basketball?
Well said, Matt.
hear, hear.
…I believe some of the frustration of not seeing Amir is coupled with the frustration of having to watch Flip hog the ball, dribble off his feet, and tunnel vision into the lane to miss a very poor shot. Flip is known quantity(somewhere between bad and awful.) Maybe when Stuckey gets back our focus will reside somewhere else. Until then we’re all curious to see for ourselves where Amirs at.
I think the frustration at not seeing Amir play just piggybacks onto the frustration we all have at watching the starts flame out in the playoffs because they’ve played too many minutes and have no bench to rely on.
if Flip is surprised at the hype Amir is getting he should stop and realize that when people ask about Amir getting playing time they’re actually asking “Are you gonna develope a bench this year and take care of the starters or should we just book fishing vacations for the finals right now?”
I think the hype around Amir is because piston fans see the need for a big that can post up and make “easy baskets”. For the last several years, the Pistons lacked this type of scorer and paid for it dearly.
If Amir can really bring an inside game - then he should play a lot.
Everyone talks about the windmill dunk of Amir but people forget it was Darko who unselfishly passed him the ball. I hope flip murray reads this
BTW, living in Israel, I try to read as much as I can and this site along with your hoopsworld rank among the best.
Great post. I agree with a lot of the comments here as well. We really need a bench that contributes enough minutes to give our starters a rest AND provide a boost of energy in the game. I think we’ve got a good shot at that this year, provided Saunders actually uses them.
I love this site because of all the intelligent comment (which is a rare thing, just look at the boards of the big newspapers). I too cannot wait for Stuckey to come back. Although I do think some of the air went out of the Pistons offence when they tried to use Johnson in the second quarter. But more than this I have a bad feeling when Murray is at the point. It always seems either he scores or nobody does.
Perfect article. Saunders needs to commit to playing the youngsters. For whatever reason, he isn’t willing to sacrifice a hand full of regular season losses to develope the players that are going to keep the window of oppurtunity open for the Pistons in the upcoming years. It’s actually getting ridiculous. Amir needs 15 minutes per game. Players don’t develope if they never see the floor. And not only will the younsters improve, the vets will be fresher in the playoffs, win-win. I’m worried we will see a similar situation with Stuckey as well. Everyone is happy with Pistons right now, but unless this team gets a more younger and more athletic side to it we are looking at another early playoff exit.
Also, let’s get Max into the starting lineup already.
McCosky spends an inordinate amount of time downplaying an 11th or 12th man. If Johnson’s not that big of a deal, does a beat writer need to regularly devote sections of his or her columns and blogs to his inexperience? Repeatedly? Like, two or three times a week?
It’s as obnoxious as someone saying Amir will be Kevin Garnett, based on his limited experience and D-League play. McCosky ultimately resembles the very people he’s constantly chastising, becoming the opposite side of the same coin.
The Maybin comparison, while superficially similar, is weak. Amir produces when he plays.
If I recall it’s not just fans but Amir’s teammate who are rooting for him. I think the looks on their faces when he does something amazing tells the story - even NBA pros agree the kid has video game moves in a likeable package. What are mere fans supposed to do — root against him?
OT: McCoskey got a bit of play in TrueHoop today — and not the good kind. Sekou Smith of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has a follow up story on something negative McCoskey said about Josh Smith. Smith’s reply? “It’s a lie.” Tyronne Lue backs up Josh Smith’s account.
http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-28-285/Tuesday-Bullets.html
IsraeliPiston, from what little I’ve seen, Amir doesn’t really have an inside game yet (other than putback dunks and facing up and driving from the high post).
Count me as the one person who AGREES WITH MCCOSKY here. I think the Amir love is fed by an irrational hatred of Nazr (who’s as good a fourth-soon-to-be-fifth big man as any team in the NBA has) as well as an unsubstantiated claim that Flip is averse to playing the bench even though it’s actually good this year.
Hayes is getting good minutes. So is Maxiell and to a lesser extent Nazr. Amir even got in during the second quarter of the last game (after missing a team flight, I might add).
Also, Flip showed no hesitation in starting Afflalo two games and I believe he’s played in every game.
Pistons fans, don’t fear. Amir will play. And he will have a some bright moments surrounded by just as many head-shakingly bad plays.
More McCosky hilarity:
Josh Smith “had to be restrained by coaches and teammates”
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071112/SPORTS0102/711120380/1127/SPORTS0102
A mere day later,
“I wasn’t trying to make it sound like Smith and Lue were going to blows or anything like that…”
http://info.detnews.com/redesign/blogs/pistonsblog/index.cfm?blogid=1092
McCosky’s vaunted college education = Creative Writing major?
Dear Chris McCosky,
Lets be honest here. This isn’t about Amir or even Piston’s fans. This is about your boy Flip Saunders and the power struggle brewing in the Piston’s head office about who decides who does and doesn’t play.
Some facts:
- Pistons fans are excited about Amir because Joe Dumars (a LEGEND around here) has TOLD us to be excited. Countless times this past offseason and in training camp Joe came out and TOLD us that Amir was ready to play and DEFINATELY would do so. The man who built a team out of parts NOBODY ELSE WANTED couldn’t stop HIS excitement in public interviews when talking about Amir, htf do you expect us to. This isn’t opinion McCosky, it’s WHAT JOE DUMARS WHO IS A WAY BETTER TALENT EVALUATOR THAN YOU ARE SAID… kay homie?
- Amir’s defensive game has already been established as more than just “NBA worthy”, it’s downright tantalizing. His offensive game is significantly less polished… however ANY idiot can see that a PF who runs as FAST AS RIP HAMILTON (who is btw one of the fastest SG in the league) and can dunk at will while open will be HIGHLY effective in transition.
-Flip Saunders prefers highly structured offensive sets complete with detailed play calls and a decent amount of shot clock milking. This strategy is very effective will veteran players who are familiar with the system. Otoh it is the antithesis of Amir’s game atm. Flip would have to A) coach basketball and B) make some adjustments to his offence to work a player like Amir in.
- This offseason Flip almost lost his job. I know everyone in Pistonsland has said that was never the case but that’s obviously good PR and nothing more. Dumars forced Flip to rebuild his staff (firing Saunder’s best friend in the process) and spent the entire offseason promising fans that THIS year the Pistons would develop a bench (note it’s unusual for a GM to tell fans how a team will play next season, usually the coach will discuss that while the GM focuses on the roster changes). Saunders is now being asked to coach with guys he didn’t pick and use players he doesn’t covet “or else”. If that isn’t slapping one’s basketball penis down on the table and saying “it’s my show Flipper”, I don’t know what is.
So lets see if I cracked the case yet McCosky:
1) Flip doesn’t like being told who to play and how to play
2) His boss has publically done just that
3) He’s powerless to stop it but he can certainly use friendly members of the media to undermine Joe’s decision.
4) You have alot of spare time and LOVE telling Pistons fans how deluded they are. You like Saunders and don’t know this Amir kid from boo… a story (or rather two) is born.
did I get it?
Zing! Take THAT, McCosky! Burn.
Excellently put together piece Matt. You really tied all the quotes and news bits together nicely.
Excellent piece.
I 100% agree with you when you say “I don’t think the fans want him to be the next Kevin Garnett or Magic Johnson — just the current Amir Johnson will do…”. He would be a nice change of pace with Maxiell, if the Pistons wanted to quicken the pace (say playing the Phoenix Suns). It’s nice to think that he has the kind of upside that could churn out a max-contract someday, but the Pistons don’t need him to be that player right now. I really don’t have a problem with the players Flip puts on the court every night, but it would be nice to see Amir get consistent minutes to see what we’re dealing with.