Cam Johnson
Brooklyn Nets

Player Facts

Height: 6'8"
Weight: 210lbs.

Wingspan: 6'10"

Date of Birth: Mar. 3, 1996
College Experience: Pittsburgh (3 years); UNC (2 years)

Selections

All Star: 0
All-NBA: 0
All-Defensive: 0

Player Grades

Speed/Explosiveness: 7
Physical Strength: 6
Positional Size: 7
Positional Wingspan: 7
Paint Scoring: 7
Midrange Scoring: 5
Three-Point Scoring: 9
Dribbling: 6
Passing: 5
Perimeter Defense: 7
Interior Defense: 5
Rebounding: 7

Embed from Getty Images

JUMP TO SECTION

> Intro

> Smooth Shooter

> Extra Off-Ball Strengths

> Burgeoning Catch-and-Go

> Versatile Defense

> Helpful Team Defender

> Below-Average Creation

> Light on Defense

> Beacon Bacon

>Link to Player Contract & Salary Info

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*All statistical data courtesy of NBA Advanced Stats

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STRENGTHS

Intro

The UNC man is a hybrid forward who stands at 6-foot-8. He's a deadeye sniper with a smooth, high release to shoot against pressure. Cam also defends the 2-through-4 positional spectrum at a firmly above-average level.

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Smooth Shooter

Cameron is silky-smooth as a wing shooter with some deep range. He has his number called with off-ball screening actions designed to get him loose for threes. He's modern-day-power-forward-sized, so he often has a clear look at the rim from his shot prep until shot release.

The portable wing eats as a shooter shooting off movement, in transition, on pick-and-pops, and as a standstill pressure-releaser. Strong above-the-break clips offer that rarer spacing value.

He'll spot up anywhere along the arc and maintain his high efficiency. He uses an abbreviated dip to get into a rhythm before rising into an upright yet balanced jump shot. Johnson can get into his shot with either the hop or the 1-2 foot alignment.

Cam was inside of the Association's top-five for spot-up points averaged in 2021-2022. The other members of this quintet were Jaylen Brown, Lonzo Ball, Keldon Johnson, and Norman Powell. He made 43% of his catch-and-shoot three-balls on the year. 2023-2024 saw him land in the 91st percentile for NBA spot-ups.

Extra Off-Ball Strengths

Johnson is a top-end off-ball player all around. He both scuts to score and cuts to foster optimal passing angles. He spent time as a Tar Heel doing this, so he's been honing his craft in this department for many years. Many of his point-blank opportunities come from timely off-ball basket cuts.

His at-the-rim clips tend to be very high, albeit on a pretty low relative volume. Cam is a big wing so he uses this size to finish against late/minimal help. He should look to pack on some more muscle to become an even more potent finisher.

Cam arrives at the rim via those talked-about back cuts against overplays or inattentive team defenders. The swingman made over three-quarters of his rim-attempts in 2021-2022 with strong marks continuing through 2023-2024. He will also stop for some floaters with decent touch there too.

Burgeoning Catch-and-Go

Johnson has grown his catch-and-go game since entering the league. He's got a nice and bursty first step to push him downhill. The lack of a refined, tight handle was more so the thing holding him back earlier in his career.

Cam's shooting has to be respected so he gets an abundance of hard run-outs at him. He's begun to capitalize on these hurried defenders by scooting by and looking to make a play. Said play can be a next-pass or a rim finish himself. Cam has an absurdly low turnover rate.

The Pennsylvania native can also be sprung by weave actions. After receiving the dribble handoff, Cam accepts how the defense is playing him – in a good way. For example, lock-and-trailing defenders will be responded to with a foray into the paint.

Versatile Defense

Defensively, Cam levels out as an additive wing defender. His high points are his versatility, the ability to contain, sneaky-good interior defense as a team defender, and elite deflection rates. As a catch-all, his defensive win shares are usually squarely positive.

He can legitimately guard three+ positions. He may be tall and have a high center of mass but he moves his feet well. 2023-2024 saw him spend 36.9% of his time on guards and 34.2% of his possessions on pure forwards.

Helpful Team Defender

He is a smart, locked-in team defender. He played the parts of five seasons at the college level, so he came into the league with as good an idea as a rookie of defensive schemes.

Johnson will slide early into the help position as the low man. He proceeds to provide solid resistance at the rim given what is typically seen out of three/four-men. Cam keeps his fouls under control while still making a tangible difference inside (opp. -1.9% < 6 feet in 2021-2022).

Cam gets his steals, defensive rebounds, and deflections too. Again, much of this is done in an off-ball capacity. As of 2023-2024, he's become a solid steals and deflections guy on a per-minute basis.

WEAKNESSES

Below-Average Creation

Cam's potentially largest weakness is as an on-ball passer. He can make good simple reads and extra passes but will miss on-ball passing windows and can become clearly focused on sticking to his original plan once he puts the ball on the deck. In 1730 2021-2022 regular season minutes, he notched just 99 assists.

There is perhaps still more to tap as a self-creator. Cam has become a strong attacker of closeouts and has shown signs of a nascent pull-up/step-back shooting game. The next step is developing a go-to iso package to at the very least burn plodding, strung-out bigs.

A more robust creation package would help him apply more rim pressure. An uptick in this area would get him more layups (where he is currently efficient but on low-volume) and shooting fouls drawn. Johnson is a strong free-throw shooter but does not get there all that often.

Light on Defense

Cam is a helpful defender. This holds true except for when he is facing bulkier player builds. He is only 210-pounds – at 6'8" that is light.

Bigger players will look to get that juicy deep-post positioning against the slight forward. Cam will front and otherwise fight, but weight advantages are what they are. More time in the weight room would help him round out his already rock-solid defensive resume.

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Interestingly, Cam was already older than established NBA teammate Devin Booker at the time of Johnson's draft