Welcome Cam Johnson

[suns12345]

I didn't think he was the right pick then, and I don't think he is the right pic now. The reason is simple, 3-point shooting specialist SFs are a dime a dozen in the NBA and SF was not a position of need for the Suns. What we needed was a future starter-quality PF or PG, of which there were plenty available (Clarke, Washington, NAW). Guess what are our positions of need going into next year's draft? PF and PG...

Can Cam turn into a starter-quality player? Sure he can, except he is in the same position as both Oubre and Bridges. He looks like he will be a good player going forward but he was not what the Suns needed and the Suns didn't have the luxury of picking up backup SFs. How useful would Clarke or Washington have been against the Lakers, where the Suns were clearly lacking size?

Not that useful. Clarke and Washington are both small Pf’s. I don’t think they would have had much more success guarding AD, Dwight and javale

On the point of not picking 3pt specialists so high, I get it. But it’s a valuable skill, and with the amounts of busts year on year in a draft, if you knew you’d be getting Kyle korver (not saying cam will necessarily be korver) I think you’d take that at pick #11 every time!?

[WeekapaugGroove]

Not all 3pt specialist are created equal. A guy like Troy Daniels for example can hit some 3s but is simply terrible at pretty much all other aspects of basketball.

What really helps cam is he's 6'8 so has enough size to be position versitile and at that size as long as you can move your feet a little and play smart you can hold your own on D. His size also helps get his shot off much easier than a little dude.

It was really his age and injury history that scared people not his skill set. If he was 20 with a clean bill of health no one would have batted an eye on him going top 10 in this past draft.

Oh and I'm not trying to argue that he was the right choice, hell I was probably the biggest PJ Washington fan on this board predraft. But Cams the guy we got so I'll discuss his game and so far he passes my eye test and I like him.
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[lilfishi22]

I didn't think he was the right pick then, and I don't think he is the right pic now. The reason is simple, 3-point shooting specialist SFs are a dime a dozen in the NBA and SF was not a position of need for the Suns. What we needed was a future starter-quality PF or PG, of which there were plenty available (Clarke, Washington, NAW). Guess what are our positions of need going into next year's draft? PF and PG...

Can Cam turn into a starter-quality player? Sure he can, except he is in the same position as both Oubre and Bridges. He looks like he will be a good player going forward but he was not what the Suns needed and the Suns didn't have the luxury of picking up backup SFs. How useful would Clarke or Washington have been against the Lakers, where the Suns were clearly lacking size?

Not that useful. Clarke and Washington are both small Pf’s. I don’t think they would have had much more success guarding AD, Dwight and javale

On the point of not picking 3pt specialists so high, I get it. But it’s a valuable skill, and with the amounts of busts year on year in a draft, if you knew you’d be getting Kyle korver (not saying cam will necessarily be korver) I think you’d take that at pick #11 every time!?

I think there needed to be a balance between a high ceiling and a high floor. We made the mistake of drafting for what felt like pure high ceiling draftees which has turned out to be a huge mistake and quite frankly set us back at least a few seasons but I felt we went too much in the direction of a high floor and not quite enough as a high ceiling with this draft.

I agree having Clarke/Washington wouldn't have made much of a dent on true bigs like the ones we went up against a couple days ago but that's why we have Ayton and Baynes. The existence of an Embiid, AD, KAT or Jokic shouldn't be a reason not to draft a quality PF.

I think your question you posed could also be turned around. If you knew you'd get a Kyle Korver with the 11 pick, I think that's a solid pick but that's if you also knew you weren't getting anything else with #11. But what if you knew a Kyle Korver was available at 11 but also a Shawn Marion-lite or Klay-lite, would you still take Korver?

[suns12345]

I didn't think he was the right pick then, and I don't think he is the right pic now. The reason is simple, 3-point shooting specialist SFs are a dime a dozen in the NBA and SF was not a position of need for the Suns. What we needed was a future starter-quality PF or PG, of which there were plenty available (Clarke, Washington, NAW). Guess what are our positions of need going into next year's draft? PF and PG...

Can Cam turn into a starter-quality player? Sure he can, except he is in the same position as both Oubre and Bridges. He looks like he will be a good player going forward but he was not what the Suns needed and the Suns didn't have the luxury of picking up backup SFs. How useful would Clarke or Washington have been against the Lakers, where the Suns were clearly lacking size?

Not that useful. Clarke and Washington are both small Pf’s. I don’t think they would have had much more success guarding AD, Dwight and javale

On the point of not picking 3pt specialists so high, I get it. But it’s a valuable skill, and with the amounts of busts year on year in a draft, if you knew you’d be getting Kyle korver (not saying cam will necessarily be korver) I think you’d take that at pick #11 every time!?

I think there needed to be a balance between a high ceiling and a high floor. We made the mistake of drafting for what felt like pure high ceiling draftees which has turned out to be a huge mistake and quite frankly set us back at least a few seasons but I felt we went too much in the direction of a high floor and not quite enough as a high ceiling with this draft.

I agree having Clarke/Washington wouldn't have made much of a dent on true bigs like the ones we went up against a couple days ago but that's why we have Ayton and Baynes. The existence of an Embiid, AD, KAT or Jokic shouldn't be a reason not to draft a quality PF.

I think your question you posed could also be turned around. If you knew you'd get a Kyle Korver with the 11 pick, I think that's a solid pick but that's if you also knew you weren't getting anything else with #11. But what if you knew a Kyle Korver was available at 11 but also a Shawn Marion-lite or Klay-lite, would you still take Korver?

All fair points.

I guess that is one of the drafts big questions.

What is more valuable to a franchise at a certain time?

90% certainty we would get a solid shooter at #11 with Cam
50% chance we'd get a good player at 6 with Culver for example
etc. etc.

Obviously i've just made up those percentages, but i guess it comes down to drafting philosophy and team need. I agree with your take on looking for higher ceilings.

But I also think we needed to hit a solid player on this pick after so many fails and we needed shooting too. If Cam turns out half decent i'm ok with it.
But I equally understand why people don't agree with the pick (I certainly didn't at first)

[lilfishi22]

Not that useful. Clarke and Washington are both small Pf’s. I don’t think they would have had much more success guarding AD, Dwight and javale

On the point of not picking 3pt specialists so high, I get it. But it’s a valuable skill, and with the amounts of busts year on year in a draft, if you knew you’d be getting Kyle korver (not saying cam will necessarily be korver) I think you’d take that at pick #11 every time!?

I think there needed to be a balance between a high ceiling and a high floor. We made the mistake of drafting for what felt like pure high ceiling draftees which has turned out to be a huge mistake and quite frankly set us back at least a few seasons but I felt we went too much in the direction of a high floor and not quite enough as a high ceiling with this draft.

I agree having Clarke/Washington wouldn't have made much of a dent on true bigs like the ones we went up against a couple days ago but that's why we have Ayton and Baynes. The existence of an Embiid, AD, KAT or Jokic shouldn't be a reason not to draft a quality PF.

I think your question you posed could also be turned around. If you knew you'd get a Kyle Korver with the 11 pick, I think that's a solid pick but that's if you also knew you weren't getting anything else with #11. But what if you knew a Kyle Korver was available at 11 but also a Shawn Marion-lite or Klay-lite, would you still take Korver?

All fair points.

I guess that is one of the drafts big questions.

What is more valuable to a franchise at a certain time?

90% certainty we would get a solid shooter at #11 with Cam
50% chance we'd get a good player at 6 with Culver for example
etc. etc.

Obviously i've just made up those percentages, but i guess it comes down to drafting philosophy and team need. I agree with your take on looking for higher ceilings.

But I also think we needed to hit a solid player on this pick after so many fails and we needed shooting too. If Cam turns out half decent i'm ok with it.
But I equally understand why people don't agree with the pick (I certainly didn't at first)

Yeah I think it's just the drafting philosophy I don't agree with but I also think if they goal in that particular draft was to get a long term shooter then they've probably accomplished that

[bwgood77]

I think there needed to be a balance between a high ceiling and a high floor. We made the mistake of drafting for what felt like pure high ceiling draftees which has turned out to be a huge mistake and quite frankly set us back at least a few seasons but I felt we went too much in the direction of a high floor and not quite enough as a high ceiling with this draft.

I agree having Clarke/Washington wouldn't have made much of a dent on true bigs like the ones we went up against a couple days ago but that's why we have Ayton and Baynes. The existence of an Embiid, AD, KAT or Jokic shouldn't be a reason not to draft a quality PF.

I think your question you posed could also be turned around. If you knew you'd get a Kyle Korver with the 11 pick, I think that's a solid pick but that's if you also knew you weren't getting anything else with #11. But what if you knew a Kyle Korver was available at 11 but also a Shawn Marion-lite or Klay-lite, would you still take Korver?

All fair points.

I guess that is one of the drafts big questions.

What is more valuable to a franchise at a certain time?

90% certainty we would get a solid shooter at #11 with Cam
50% chance we'd get a good player at 6 with Culver for example
etc. etc.

Obviously i've just made up those percentages, but i guess it comes down to drafting philosophy and team need. I agree with your take on looking for higher ceilings.

But I also think we needed to hit a solid player on this pick after so many fails and we needed shooting too. If Cam turns out half decent i'm ok with it.
But I equally understand why people don't agree with the pick (I certainly didn't at first)

Yeah I think it's just the drafting philosophy I don't agree with but I also think if they goal in that particular draft was to get a long term shooter then they've probably accomplished that

What is interesting, looking at rookie stats, and purely by %, both PJ Washington and Brandon Clarke have better 3pt% than Cam, but of course not the volume (though PJ is close)....and then of course higher in other stuff like rebounding, blocks, FG%, etc.

https://basketball.realgm.com/nba/stats/2020/Averages/All/tpfg_pct/All/desc/1/Regular_Season?rookies=

[DJ_3_Ball]

I don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread already, but another really excellent reason to take Cameron Johnson is Devin Booker's presence. There's a reason Steph Curry is more effective with Klay Thompson than without. With Booker's passing ability, defenses have to respect Johnson's outside shooting, so they can't run as many help defenders at Booker.

Say Jaxson Hayes had "slipped" to the Suns at 11. Everyone would of said "Wow! Great value", but he wouldn't of done anything for Booker. There's other guys who were drafted behind Johnson that have shooting prowess. Herro, Bitadze, PJ Washington, etc. Still, Cameron Johnson was widely thought of as the best pure shooter in last year's draft. Herro might have something to say about that when all is said & done, but Johnson is 6-8 with a 6-10 wingspan and can play the SF/PF role. Herro is 6-5 with a 6-3.25 wingspan and is restricted to playing off guard.

bwgood77, it's fair to point out Washington is playing 31.1 mpg and Johnson is only playing 16.6 mpg. That's the main reason Washington has 19 made 3s on the season (including his 3 in the 1st half of tonight's game), and Johnson has 15 made 3s this season. Also, Washington had that one game where he was 7/11 from downtown. Skews his numbers quite a bit, if you take that game out of his totals, he's well below Johnson... Actually, I think it's just a matter of time before Johnson has his own 7/11 from deep game.

[WeekapaugGroove]

Read on Twitter

Good article on Johnson. Theres a mention of Bridges saying he messed himself up this summer in a athletic article, I don't have a subscription anymore anyone know what he all said?

Here's some vids of his 3s, his footwork is very good especially for a rook

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[ATTL]

I was confused why everyone said cam couldn't play 4 in the NBA. Its not like he's going to be playing against Oakley or anthony mason. Small ball is seemingly here to stay and can can play either forward spot depending on the lineup.
There aren't many punishing 4's left in the league.

[Barkley6]

Something I think is worth noting about Cam Johnson is how productive he's been early in the year. If you compare him to Booker early on in his rookie season, it's a pretty stark comparison. Book was only averaging like 3ppg at the same point in his rookie season. Booker only hit his 5th double digit scoring game on December 26th of his rookie season, and Cam could achieve that tonight.

Obviously age and maturity are likely big factors,(difference between a 23 year old rookie and an 18 year old one) but Booker was in the same mold coming out of college of "best shooter in the draft" but most people didnt think he'd be much more than just a shooter.

I'm pretty happy with Cam so far and I think he'll only get better.

[lilfishi22]

Something I think is worth noting about Cam Johnson is how productive he's been early in the year. If you compare him to Booker early on in his rookie season, it's a pretty stark comparison. Book was only averaging like 3ppg at the same point in his rookie season. Booker only hit his 5th double digit scoring game on December 26th of his rookie season, and Cam could achieve that tonight.

Obviously age and maturity are likely big factors,(difference between a 23 year old rookie and an 18 year old one) but Booker was in the same mold coming out of college of "best shooter in the draft" but most people didnt think he'd be much more than just a shooter.

I'm pretty happy with Cam so far and I think he'll only get better.

I think age,maturity and opportunity were certainly key factors. We didn't need Booker in a much bigger role than a shooter off the bench until Bledsoe went down in December and Booker had to become a starter. I don't think there was much expectations hat Booker would play his way into starter minutes and also become a lead guard by the end of his rookie season.

Cam came in as an older rookie who was a great shooter and he's basically come in to do what he's good at, shoot and hit shots.

[jcsunsfan]

Not that useful. Clarke and Washington are both small Pf’s. I don’t think they would have had much more success guarding AD, Dwight and javale

On the point of not picking 3pt specialists so high, I get it. But it’s a valuable skill, and with the amounts of busts year on year in a draft, if you knew you’d be getting Kyle korver (not saying cam will necessarily be korver) I think you’d take that at pick #11 every time!?

I think there needed to be a balance between a high ceiling and a high floor. We made the mistake of drafting for what felt like pure high ceiling draftees which has turned out to be a huge mistake and quite frankly set us back at least a few seasons but I felt we went too much in the direction of a high floor and not quite enough as a high ceiling with this draft.

I agree having Clarke/Washington wouldn't have made much of a dent on true bigs like the ones we went up against a couple days ago but that's why we have Ayton and Baynes. The existence of an Embiid, AD, KAT or Jokic shouldn't be a reason not to draft a quality PF.

I think your question you posed could also be turned around. If you knew you'd get a Kyle Korver with the 11 pick, I think that's a solid pick but that's if you also knew you weren't getting anything else with #11. But what if you knew a Kyle Korver was available at 11 but also a Shawn Marion-lite or Klay-lite, would you still take Korver?

All fair points.

I guess that is one of the drafts big questions.

What is more valuable to a franchise at a certain time?

90% certainty we would get a solid shooter at #11 with Cam
50% chance we'd get a good player at 6 with Culver for example
etc. etc.

Obviously i've just made up those percentages, but i guess it comes down to drafting philosophy and team need. I agree with your take on looking for higher ceilings.

But I also think we needed to hit a solid player on this pick after so many fails and we needed shooting too. If Cam turns out half decent i'm ok with it.
But I equally understand why people don't agree with the pick (I certainly didn't at first)

The 90% route got us players like Dan Majerle, Devin Booker, and Steve Nash. Ainge called him the “safe” pick.

The 50% route was Chriss, Bender, and Jackson. You can build a championship team off of 90% picks.

The 60%

[ATTL]

Watch on YouTube

[NTB]

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[Desertfox]

Is that Clarke right above Cam?

[suns12345]

Is that Clarke right above Cam?

Yep

At this point I’d rather have Cam. His gravity and shooting/scoring has saved us from looking totally ugly the last two games.

Hard to know in the long term though

[bwgood77]

Read on Twitter

Wow, he's 2nd to the right? I guess it makes sense for offense. And is that Brandon Clarke furthest to the right? I guess he is shooting 44.4% from 3 (huge surprise), over 65% from 2 and has a TS% of almost 68%. I expected efficiency but the 3 pt shooting is shocking.

Poor Reddish. And who is that in the very bottom left?

[suns12345]

Read on Twitter

Wow, he's 2nd to the right? I guess it makes sense for offense. And is that Brandon Clarke furthest to the right? I guess he is shooting 44.4% from 3 (huge surprise), over 65% from 2 and has a TS% of almost 68%. I expected efficiency but the 3 pt shooting is shocking.

Poor Reddish. And who is that in the very bottom left?

Jordan poole. Warriors first round pick.

He has been terrible. Tough situation though i guess

[sunskerr]

Cam Johnson is gonna be a solid player. He should work on his handles 24/7 and then he'll have a chance to take a big leap. His shooting is already there. He kinda reminds me of Booker's rookie year right now. But yeah, Johnson's development is fairly straight forward- just work on ball handling and shooting off the dribble.

[bwgood77]

Is that Clarke right above Cam?

Yep

At this point I’d rather have Cam. His gravity and shooting/scoring has saved us from looking totally ugly the last two games.

Hard to know in the long term though

I like Cam, but can't go that far. Clarke is shooting 44.4% from 3 with Cam at 40.4%, but of course on much heavier volume, but it shows Clarke will command respect to be guarded for now. But the TS% and everywhere else, he leads...TS% of close to 68% as I mentioned, but more assists, rebounds, blocks and steals per 36, and we know he is generally a very smart team defender.

I am very happy with Cam, and I expected good play from Clarke anyway (not quite this level of 3 pt shooting) but we could certainly use is activeness and efficiency inside right now, and the fact he is shooting so well from 3 is a nice bonus.