James Johnson should be an offseason priority for the Miami Heat
A look into how James Johnson has been performing and why he deserves an extended stay with the Miami Heat when he becomes a free agent this summer.
Every off-season, NBA teams have tough decisions to make. It’s not whether they’ll max their superstar or let him walk, that’s easy. The decisions on what role players to keep usually proves to be the most difficult, because those are the players that do the dirty work. The Miami Heat are no exception.
Sure, you can look from the outside in and say that most role players are replaceable. But how true would that be? When the Heat won the championship in 2012 and 2013, guys like Shane Battier, Mike Miller, and Chris Anderson were important pieces to the puzzle. Neither of those guys would be considered superstars or stars. But they were stars in their roles.
The 2016-17 Heat find themselves in the position of having to decide if one of their role players is worth bringing back next season.
James Johnson was signed by the Heat after being discarded by the Toronto Raptors, and has shown himself to be one of the better performers on the team. He’s been extremely versatile, playing alot of power forward and center, and in doing so, is averaging career-highs in points, rebounds, and assists. He’s also shooting 38% from the three-point line, which is also a career best.
The Heat have been struggling to get any consistent production from anyone outside of Johnson from the power forward position, and that should be taken into consideration going forward. He’s been seamlessly able to flip between point-forward and stretch-four (h/t to AUCH’s own Allana Tachauer for this observation), which is something every team can use with the direction of the league trending more and more toward small ball.
More importantly though, Johnson has been able to ingratiate himself pretty well into the Heat culture and becoming one of the fan favorites fairly quickly. His all-out effort and tough guy demeanor makes him a guy fans want to keep around.
With the 2017 NBA Draft being considered one of the best in a while, and the Miami Heat heading for a lottery pick, Johnson’s future with the team could be up in the air if going young is what the Heat decide to do. However, it seems he has proven himself to be a very nice piece to have in the next few years going forward. Here’s to hoping the Heat see things the same way.