Johnson earns return to Raptors rotation

Josh Lewenberg

TSN Raptors Reporter

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TORONTO - Just two weeks earlier, everyone was up in arms over James Johnson's reduced role, everyone except for the player himself.

The Raptors' versatile forward had been down this road before, all but steering his career into a ditch.

Three years ago, Johnson found himself in a similar situation during his initial stint with Toronto. Once a starter, his minutes were cut, his role minimized. He clashed with head coach Dwane Casey over his perceived value to the team. He believed he should be playing more, scoring more, doing more, and had a hard time accepting his reality.

He knows where that takes you. He's lived the consequences.

On Friday evening, after Johnson helped lead his team to a surprising victory over the Clippers in his return from a hamstring injury, the forward was nowhere to be found. His teammates showered, dressed and called it a night but Johnson's locker was still full.

Where had he gone?

Moments after the final buzzer sounded, Johnson hopped in an elevator and made his way to the Raptors' practice facility, located three floors above the team's locker room at the Air Canada Centre, to get in some extra work.

"Stick to my routine," said the sixth-year pro, explaining his late-night workout session. "If I'm not getting the 20-plus minutes, I'm going to stay doing my extra shooting, extra lifting."

"You never know how many minutes you're gonna get, when's your next opportunity to play, so you just have to stay ready. Give a lot of credit to [assistant coach] Jama [Mahlalela], always coming up there, sacrificing some dinner times with me, coming up there at nighttime. It's working out."

This has become part of Johnson's regular post-game routine. Mahlalela has been working with him individually for weeks.

"We'll actually go up after the games," Mahlalela told TSN.ca in a phone interview Monday afternoon. "He'll literally just change out of his uniform and into practice clothes and we'll go up and spend anywhere between 20 minutes and 30 minutes, it's never that long. But really just honing his craft.

"We've been doing that I think every game since he's been back," he continued. "And then also we come back in the evenings on an off-day, so a night like tonight and tomorrow night we'll get him back in the gym. And then we'll spend about 30-45 minutes and get a volume of three-point shots, a ton of threes, trying to get him to shoot it real consistently and get comfortable."

Johnson was logging an average of 24 minutes in 21 games with DeMar DeRozan out of the lineup earlier this season. Once DeRozan returned to his usual 33-minute per night workload and given the team's depth of talent on the wing, he became the odd man out. He averaged just 11 minutes in seven of the team's next nine contests, sitting out the other two as a healthy scratch, before sustaining a hamstring injury that would keep him out of four straight games.

Externally, many wondered if Casey and Johnson were butting heads again, if history had repeated itself behind the scenes, if Johnson went rogue, but those suspicions were unfounded. Casey insisted Johnson had done nothing wrong and was handling his reduced role like a pro, that it was merely a result of DeRozan's return and Terrence Ross' move to the bench. The rotation was in flux.

It was around this time that Johnson reached out to Mahlalela.

"I think all the players know that the coaches are here whenever they want to get extra work from the beginning of the season," the Raptors' assistant said. "In this instance, James has been the one, and I give him all the credit for saying, 'hey, let's get up there, let's get an extra workout.' He's really been leading the charge so we're more than happy to accommodate and help him get better. That's sort of the joy of coaching is when a player wants to get better on their own. It makes it so much easier.

"I think the late-night stuff is really great for players' minds because it just lets them really take ownership over their own craft and no one else is in the gym. It's just him and a coach, really, and you spend the time and that extra commitment, I think it really starts to pay dividends."

From watching him on the bench over the last month you would never know his playing time had been cut. Johnson, as usual, has remained one of the most animated players on the sidelines, celebrating after big plays and supporting his teammates in timeouts. He hasn't hung his head, but he's worked his tail off.

Mahlalela is in his second season opposite Casey on the Raptors bench. Prior to that he worked in the team's front office as director of player development, where he watched Johnson engineer his own exit back in 2012. He's seen the difference in the 27-year-old.

"The simplest answer is he's really matured as an athlete and even more so I think he's matured as a person," Mahlalela said. "And his approach to the game, in terms of if he doesn't get a certain number of minutes in one game he realizes it is a marathon season and he knows that there's going to be opportunities for him. I think he's confident in his game, which every player obviously is, but he knows that he brings a skill set to our team that we're going to need in certain points. And just his ability, as we said, to just say, 'hey coach, can I come in and get extra work?' And, 'I'm going to do what I need to do to stay ready, and when the coach is ready to put me in, I'll be ready to go.' It's just a very good, mature head on his shoulders, a very sound NBA approach for a longer career, so we're really pleased with it."

Casey and general manager Masai Ujiri had cited Johnson's matured approach in their decision to bring him back over the summer, but even after meeting with him, talking to him and being reassured by him, they were still unsure how he would fare in the face of adversity. They were hopeful, but apprehensive. Eventually he was going to be tested. 

Less than an hour before Sunday's game against the San Antonio Spurs, it was announced that Johnson would replace Greivis Vasquez in the Raptors' starting lineup, a surprise to many that believed Ross was on the cusp of winning his job back.

Coming off an impressive performance - 16 points on a perfect 7-for-7 shooting in 19 minutes Friday - Johnson was the man of the hour following another unlikely victory, 87-82, over the defending champs. Johnson's 20 points led the team, but it was his go-ahead three-ball and big offensive rebound with four seconds left that ultimately sealed the win.

Prior to that three, with less than a minute remaining, Johnson had shot 14-for-14 from inside three-feet over the past two games while going 0-for-2 from outside 15-feet - both airballs. A career 26 per cent three-point shooter - 22 per cent this season - Johnson is not known for his jumper but it is the main focus whenever he and Mahlalela get in the gym.

After the game, Casey was asked why he opted to start Johnson.

"It wasn't for the three," he joked.

"It was for defensive purposes, to match up with Kawhi Leonard, give us a physical presence with him. I was worried about his minutes but he was okay, his hammy was okay. We were watching him but he came through with flying colours."

How long Casey plans to use Johnson with the first unit is anybody's guess. Both the team's offence and defence changes drastically with him in the lineup. Although he owns the second-best defensive rating on the roster, his jump shot remains a work in progress and could hinder their spacing around DeRozan and Kyle Lowry. The Raps attempted just 13 three-pointers on Sunday after launching a total of 63 in their previous two contests, which could be a blessing or a curse depending on who you ask and, most importantly, whether those shots are falling.

One thing is for certain, regardless of his role, Johnson has fought his way back into the Raptors' plans going forward.