The Raptors’ Stanley Johnson has waited and worked for his opportunity

Stanley Johnson sat and watched but he didn’t stew.

He didn’t get angry, he didn’t quit on himself or his team. He worked when he had to, listened when he should have, learned what he could. He was an NBA lottery pick relegated to the end of the bench with his third team in five seasons. So many before him in similar situations had given up. He didn’t.

That attitude and ethic was not lost on his teammates or his coaches, and now Johnson finds himself in the regular Raptors rotation, a testament to his personality, his professionalism, his level of self-awareness.

“This is a performance-based thing,” Johnson said this week. “This is not AAU, this is not YMCA, you play on your performance. If (I wasn’t) playing good enough, that’s probably why I wasn’t playing.”

That’s a very astute observation and runs counter to how many players would react. Few who are buried on benches realize or admit the responsibility is theirs — it’s always a coaching issue, or a usage issue, or a fit issue.

“I think he struggled a little bit with his role and the way that we do things when he first got here,” Raptors guard Fred VanVleet said. “It took some time for him to warm up to the idea of what we needed him to be. I’d say probably since the bubble, getting time to be around him every single day and learn about him more, learn his story, he’s been great ever since.”

It is telling that Johnson could have bailed on the Raptors last summer when he had the option to get out of the final year of his contract but he didn’t leave. Yes, the $3.8 million (U.S.) he will earn this year was a factor but the NBA unemployment rolls are filled with players who figure they will become free agents and find work immediately at the same, or close to the same, salary.

It was more than that to the 24-year-old native of Los Angeles, who spent the entire 2020 off-season working out in Toronto.

“I really, really, really, really enjoy playing for this organization, top to bottom, and for me and my development — even though some people would say I didn’t get better or whatever they think about me — I thought I got better here,” he said.

“I thought the instruction I was getting was positive and instructive for me and I feel like the work I was doing was better and I had a goal in mind to make the rotation and get minutes and I’m still striving for that goal.”

The goal has been reached now, at least for the time being. Johnson’s positional flexibility — he can guard both forward positions and can handle some smaller centres — has made him a mainstay in the Raptors’ second unit.

“He’s given us something that we haven’t had this year, which is a defensive spark off the bench at that forward position,” VanVleet said. “He’s been great and we need him to keep getting better.”

Johnson’s strength as a player is his strength — “I’m not a small person, I’m not light in the butt,” he said — and that allows Nurse to deploy him against players listed as much bigger than Johnson’s six-foot-six frame.

“I think the biggest part of it is mentally, sometimes you’ve got to evaluate yourself,” Johnson said. “I feel like you’ve got to write your own story. Every time you go out, every time you wake up you have an opportunity to get better at things or make it happen for yourself.”

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Johnson has proven that to the coaches, even when he appeared in only 25 of the Raptors’ 72 games last season. Only once before the eight-game bubble season did he play more than 10 minutes in any game.

“He’s never wavered on the coaching, he’s always kind of believed in what we were doing and felt good about that,” Nurse said. “He’s always thought we were trying to tell him to do the right things individually and team-wise. And he’s always worked hard, he’s always been able to summon up the energy to continue to work hard each day.”

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