Cam Johnson’s Nuggets tenure has gotten off to a slow start as he has struggled to find a rhythm within the offense, and his jumper looks out of sync. As a team, tehy should harken back to something they used to do with Michael Porter Jr., and look to get Cam involved early. Get him in the action right away, or run something to get him an open look off a catch.
Get him into the game early and see if he can work his way into a groove with the starters. The Nuggets have a good enough offense that they can afford to be patient in letting guys like Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and Aaron Gordon get going.
Those guys are going to show up and do what they do. But to take this team to the next level, they need the complementary guys along for the ride, and that starts with Johnson. The Nuggets have been fine so far, even with his struggles, but they are surely going to need him at some point.
We’re nine games into the season, and Johnson is averaging just 8 points a game on 23% three-point shooting. That’s down over 10 points a game from last season and a 16% dip in long-range shooting. The Nuggets got Johnson to fill this void and be an upgrade over MPJ, but so far, they’ve gotten anything but that.
Still plenty of time for Johnson, Nuggets to run it around
The good news is that it’s still very early in the season. Johnson is still getting acclimated to Denver, his new teammates, and his new role within the team. It’s a big shift from being a go-to guy in Brooklyn the past few seasons to fitting in with an already elite starting lineup in Denver.
Still, Jokic and company generally make the game easier for players like Johnson, not harder. He needs to get comfortable and start hitting shots very soon, or this could turn ugly. Luckily, the Nuggets have been winning in spite of his poor play, so the complaints have been subdued. But if Cam doesn’t turn things around, and the team starts to lose games, it’ll be a problem.
This is all the more reason why the Nuggets should go out of their way to get Johnson into the mix. Emphasize his strengths and feed him some easy looks early in the game to see if you can get him going. Once it clicks, the sky is the limit for this team, but until then, there’s work to be done.
