Johnson wants to prove skills can carry over to regular season
LAS VEGAS — There was no help for Mangok Mathiang, and little hope.
Thunder center Dakari Johnson had him isolated in the post in the first half of Oklahoma City’s 88-87 Summer League loss to the Hornets on Friday, and with no double-team coming, the rookie was out of his depth.
Johnson got his body into Mathiang, scored easily and gave the rookie an earful about it.
Eventually, Johnson has to show those summer skills can carry over to the winter.
At some point, Johnson admitted Friday, “it has to translate” to the NBA.
The 20 points and eight rebounds he posted Friday are a good indicator of what he can do against lower-level competition, but there will come a time when he has to show the Thunder that he can contribute against top competition.
“But the main thing is just coming out here and not getting bored with it,” Johnson said. “Just competing, showing the coaches I’m capable of doing it. My main goal is just to come out here and dominate.”
Against the level of competition he’s seeing here, Johnson can do that.
He did a little of everything on Friday. He scored inside. He put the ball on the floor. He dished out three assists, including a beauty of an alley-oop to PJ Dozier for a dunk late in the fourth quarter.
In 10 G League games with the Oklahoma City Blue this season, Johnson averaged 23.3 points and 10 rebounds in 31.9 minutes. He shot 58.8 percent from the floor, and the 7-foot, 255-pound center dished out three assists per game.
But after two full seasons in the G League, Johnson spent most of 2017-18 with the Thunder, primarily as a backup to Steven Adams. Johnson averaged just 5.2 minutes, scoring 1.8 points and 1.1 rebounds per game. He started six games.
It’s far too early to write off Johnson as an NBA prospect. Despite two years of college and three as a pro, he won’t turn 23 until September.
Still, as the game moves to smaller, more nimble centers, it’s fair to wonder if Johnson is destined to be a sort of basketball Crash Davis, the fictional slugger from “Bull Durham” who set minor league home run records but couldn’t cut it as a baseball big-leaguer.
Every time Johnson puts up a monster game in Summer League or for the Blue, the question is whether he can do it at the next level.
“Offensively, yes,” said Mark Daigneault, the Blue coach who’s also coaching the Thunder’s Summer League team. “The answer is yes.”
Johnson is a baller, Daigneault said, a big man who plays the game because he loves it, not because his size steered him to it. He came to Oklahoma City after two seasons at Kentucky as a fullyformed passer, Daigneault said, who needed to work on his body and his defensive acumen.
He still needs to do those things.
Weight loss has been a rite of the offseason for Johnson, and again this summer he looks slimmer. But Johnson isn’t fleet afoot and doesn’t explode off the court and probably never will.
That means he has to focus on knowing where to
be on the floor defensively and beating his man to those spots. That requires him to be “an expert in the system,” Daigneault said, and a “student of the league.”
“A prototype for that was Perk,” Daigneault said. “Kendrick Perkins didn’t have great lift and he really didn’t have Dakari’s size I don’t think, but what he was, was he was really early (to his spots) and intelligent. That’s been a focal point for us with (Johnson) defensively.”
Offensively, Daigneault said, what Johnson does well can translate to the NBA, and to the Thunder specifically. As Johnson enters the final year of a two-year contract, he wants to show that to OKC.
“It’s a big summer for me,” Johnson said. “I definitely feel like I have something to prove.”
It’s a big summer for me. I definitely feel like I have something to prove.”
Dakari Johnson