Johnsen has spent the year with Panellinios in Greece. He averaged 6.2 points and 3.2 rebounds per game in the Greek league, alongside 7.5 points and 4.1 rebounds per game in the EuroCup. However, he has not played for last six weeks due to a knee injury.
One thing I didn’t know until about Britton Johnsen until just now; a decade ago, he got into a fight with Amadou Makhtar N’Diaye (not Mamadou), who accused him of using the N word. I’m guessing Johnsen used the word “bigger” at some point, which N’Diaye misinterpreted. Either way, strange times.
Florida State product Johnson went to camp with the Utah Jazz this year, but despite 31 decent preseason minutes, he did not make the team. He then went to China to play for the DongGuan New Century Leopards. However, he got injured after only thirteen minutes in his first game and had to be carried off the court; it was the only CBA game he played. A couple of month passed while Johnson rehabbed his injuries, and then in late January he re-emerged in the D-League with the Sioux Falls Skyforce.
Johnson quickly became one of the best players in the league; in 19 games he is averaging 22.6 points and 11.2 rebounds, shooting 56% from the field and 75% from the line. However, the problem that marred his earlier NBA forays remain; put simply, Johnson makes mistakes. Not a Mike Greenberg-style racial epithet mistake, nor the Gilbert Arenas sort of gun-wielding mistakes, and nor the Mark McGwire type of mistake whereby you shoot protein-based poly-peptides into your veins to gain a competitive advantage using the ridiculously terrible defence that other people were doing it too. No, Johnson’s mistakes are instead made on the court. In addition to those good numbers above, Johnson also averages 4.0 turnovers and 3.0 fouls in only 32 minutes per game; this from the same man who averaged a foul every eight minutes in his NBA career with a turnover rate of 18.9%. For comparison’s sake, the notoriously turnover prone-Eddy Curry has a career turnover rate of 16.6%, with a single season high of 18.4% (2006-07).
It was never size, scoring ability or rebounding ability that hampered Johnson’s NBA prospects. He has enough of all those. Instead, it was the mistakes, the turnovers, the fouls, the free points and possessions for the opposition. Johnson is an NBA-calibre player even with this flaw, and is an entirely deserving call-up candidate. But he is now 27 and hasn’t cured this problem. If he does, awesome. If he doesn’t, the next couple of years will be spent on the fringes.
Missouri graduate Arthur Johnson last played in the 2007-08 season with Italian second division team, Eldo Caserta. He averaged 13.8 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.7 steals per game, shooting 61% from the field.
After that date, I cannot find him. And I’ve looked very hard.
As regular viewers of this site will know, the Chinese CBA and the Puerto Rican BSN are of particularly interest in these posts, for those two leagues house an unduly awesome amount of former NBA talent. Additionally, with the CBA taking place between December and April, and the BSN from March until June, a lot of players tend to take part in both. It’s two pay checks, after all.
Johnson is one who has done just that. As outlined in this post about Chinese Basketball Association statistics – a piece that has made me a figure of bilious hate and scorn amongst the Chinese basketball community, who feel slighted that an Englishman would write about their league while singularly misunderstanding that the reason it was only a look at statistics was because IT WAS ONLY A LOOK AT STATISTICS – Johnson totalled a very inconsistent 19.9 ppg and 5.8 rpg for Jiangsu, before leaving the team in January. He then moved to Puerto Rico for the start of their season, and averaged 11.9 points and 4.7 rebounds for Ponce Lions. However, he was released last week, along with DeAngelo Collins, to be replaced by Leon Rodgers and Andre Brown. All four are China/Puerto Rico duellists, which reinforces what I just said just now about that.
Johnson was covered not so long ago in the 1993 NBA Draft Recap WATN thing. Permalinks to those can be found in the menu down the side, and I implore you to read them. Because if 11,467 people do, I may just recoup the time I spent doing them.
Former Miami Heat big man Ken Johnson has spent most of the previous two seasons in Germany, where he was an All-Star last year. His averages were kind of strange – 7.3 ppg, 3.3 rpg and 2.1 bpg in 47 games – but the blocks per game led the country. This year, he packed up his toys and moved to Estonia to play for a team called BC Kalev/Cramo Tallinn. Johnson averaged 6.3 points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.2 blocks in the Estonian league, and 7.4/5.0/3.1 in the Baltic league, before he was replaced last month by former D-Leaguer Kevin Owens.
Lint played for the Orlando Magic in training camp, and would have been a good fit and a good player had they been able to afford to keep him. He did survive two days on the regular season roster, but I’m not sure that counts. Since that time, Linton has remained unsigned, presumably waiting on the Bulls to bring him back again. If it wasn’t for the mere technicality that is Jerome James’s insurance payments, they probably would have done so by now.
Chris Paul favourite Trey Johnson (as he’s known) started the year in France, playing for BCM Gravelines Dunkerque Grand Littoral. Or, as Vinny Del Negro calls them, Dunkurt. He averaged 8.8 points per game in the French league and 11.3 points per game in the EuroChallenge, before leaving the team at the end of January. After a month on the shelf, Johnson returned to the D-League to play for the Bakersfield Jam, for whom he is averaging 19.4 points and a very uncharacteristically high 7.9 assists per game. Included in that was a 20 point, 20 assist game in only his second game for the team, a game in which he also had only two turnovers. This actually happened. For a career scorer like Johnson, this is quite the welcome surprise.
Joksimovic is a Slovenian national team undersized two guard who awkwardly shares the same name and birth year of a more famous Slovenian international footballer. He had played the last four years for Serbian powerhouse Hemofarm, but in the summer he moved to Russia to play for Lokomotiv Kuban. After averaging 7.5 points for them in the Russian league, N-Jock moved to Italy to play for Scavolini Pesaro, for whom he is averaging 5.8 points in the Italian league. He is averaging a better 10.9 points per game in the EuroChallenge, though, shooting 12-21 from three-point range, and 15-15 from two-point range. Those are Brent Barry numbers from the Slovenian Jon Barry.
Jomantas is a Lithuanian national team forward playing for Lithuanian team Lietuvos Rytas. He averaged 9.5 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game in the EuroLeague, a bizarre 6.3/3.8/4.3 in the Lithuanian league, and 10.5/5.3/4.5 in the Baltic league.
These last two players became personal favourites of mine during last year’s EuroCup campaign. I only have to like players for them to be on here. If you start seeing posts about Montana’s Derrick Selvig any time soon, that’ll be why.
Former Sixers draft pick and Nuggets training camp invite Alvin Jones last played in late 2008 with the Minot Skyrockets of the now-defunct CBA. Jones played a few games with the team while sporting a hamstring injury, then kicked off a bit, staged a walkout 20 minutes before one game and has never played anywhere since. I can’t find him either.
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