KJ Deserves Hall of Fame

[bwgood77]

Great article on KJ.. http://www.nba.com/suns/kevin-johnson-d ... -call-hall

[Sun Scorched]

KJ was amazing. He's definately underappreciated on RealGM. I'm biased, but I think he's HOF material.

In fact, he may be defined by this whole Sacramento Kings thing as well. HOF applies more than just to your NBA career.

[bwgood77]

KJ was amazing. He's definately underappreciated on RealGM. I'm biased, but I think he's HOF material.

In fact, he may be defined by this whole Sacramento Kings thing as well. HOF applies more than just to your NBA career.

It just amazes me to look back and think that he got 20 and 12 in his second season. And 22 and 11 in his third. It's extremely rare for ANYONE to get those numbers, much less that early in their careers.

Even his rookie year he had monster games.

I think he is vastly underrated, partially because most east coast fans never saw him play (before Barkley came) since there weren't nearly as many games on tv back in the late 80s/early 90s. Once Barkley joined it took quite a bit of KJ's game away from him too, since Barkley's usage rate was fairly high.

His best years were before Barkley joined the team and some people don't realize that we had as many wins the four years before Barkley as we did the four years with Barkley, getting to the WCF twice in KJs first two years.

[Sun Scorched]

It's mainly interesting to me to see how cult followings grow around certain players, like Isaiah Thomas, and ignore players like Johnson.

Felt this was worth posting here:

In the 1991 All-Star Game, Johnson started alongside Magic Johnson in the Western Conference backcourt. In anticipation of the game, the Sporting News asked whether K.J. may have surpassed Magic as the best player on the court.[13] The previous spring in the 1990 Western Conference Semifinals, Johnson led the Suns past Magic’s league-best, 63-win Los Angeles Lakers, four games to one. Over the last two games, Johnson closed out the series by averaging 33.5 points and a dozen assists as the Suns won both Game Four and Game Five, with K.J. vastly outplaying Magic Johnson in the fourth quarter of both contests. Indeed, Johnson's clutch performances led Hall of Fame center and NBC commentator Bill Walton to later remark, “Kevin Johnson ... really came to the top of this league in the 1990 playoffs when he waxed Magic Johnson and the Lakers in the early rounds. Kevin Johnson – and the Suns – taking care of business in 1990, four to one over the Lakers ... Kevin Johnson just totally outplaying Magic.” Johnson’s performance during the 1990 playoffs led the Suns to a second consecutive berth in the Western Conference Finals as Phoenix became the only team to ever defeat John Stockton's Jazz (55 wins) and Magic Johnson's Lakers (63 wins) in the same postseason.

Johnson made the playoffs every year of his career after his rookie season, reversing the fortunes of the perennially losing Phoenix Suns. The 1992-93 Suns, led by Johnson and new teammate Charles Barkley, posted an NBA-best 62-20 record and managed to make it to the NBA Finals, where they fell to the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls four games to two. Johnson averaged 17.8 points and 7.9 assists in the playoffs and established an NBA record for Finals minutes played by logging 62 minutes in Game 3 (a 129-121 triple-OT victory) vs. the Bulls.[4]

But even before Johnson played his first regular season game with Charles Barkley, he suffered an undiagnosed hernia in October 1992 when he attempted to lift obese rookie teammate Oliver Miller off the ground during a preseason game. By the middle of the '95-'96 season, Johnson had suffered a second undiagnosed hernia. Primarily due to the groin, hamstring, quadriceps, and other muscle strains stemming from these hernias, Johnson missed 109 regular season games during his four seasons with Barkley from '92-'93 through '95-'96 (although he only missed one playoff game during his entire career). When diligent off-season workouts during the summer of 1996 failed to erase the abdominal and groin pain that had been plaguing Johnson since the middle of the last season, the Suns' doctors finally diagnosed the second hernia just after the start of training camp in the fall of 1996. Then, during surgery to repair the hernia, the Phoenix doctors discovered the second, "hidden" hernia that had existed for four years.[14][15][16]

Despite the undiagnosed hernia problems, K.J. continued to thrive in the postseason like no other point guard in the 1990s. In 1994, he averaged 26.6 points and 9.6 assists in the postseason, scoring 38 points three different times in ten games. In 1995, after an injury-riddled regular season, Johnson returned to form in the postseason, averaging 24.8 points on 57.3% shooting from the field and 9.3 assists in ten games, including 43 points (18-24 FG) with 9 assists in Game Four of the Western Conference Semifinals versus Houston and 46 points (21-22 FT) with 10 assists in Game Seven. During that series, K.J. sank more three-pointers (5) than he'd hit in the entire '94-'95 regular season (4). In Game Four of the previous year’s series with Houston, Johnson completed a remarkable play, driving the baseline and dunking over 7’0” Rockets center Hakeem Olajuwon. The shot became an oft-played highlight for the ages and was part of a second consecutive 38-point, 12-assist effort by the point guard.

Incredible. If not for those injuries.

[TASTIC]

^ I really hope Rose's injury doesn't limit him later in his career like it did KJ

Man he was a machine...too quick off the dribble and too good from mid-range to sag off him...Deadly.

[garrick]

Man Oliver Miller really screwed the Suns over didn't he? If you didn't watch Miller play he had super long arms so was a decent shot blocker and offensively when he wasn't morbidly obese had good touch around the basket.
Too bad he couldn't stay away from those cheese burgers...