An underrated Spurs veteran getting Sixth Man of the Year love

De’Aaron Fox and Stephon Castle is the first credit for the San Antonio Spurs for the team’s recent play, including their success in NBA Cup. After Dylan Harper and, perhaps, Luke Cornett and Harrison Barnes, even Julian Champagne’s name may appear before Keldon Johnson. But the star teammate does not miss the opportunity to present flowers to the 26-year-old striker.

“I think he has to fight to be a 6th man of the year,” Fox said of his fellow former Kentucky Wildcat.

It’s Johnson on average 13.1 points and 6.5 rebounds per game. He’s putting up those numbers in 24 minutes a night on a young team with the aforementioned firepower centered around Victor Vembanyama, who has been sidelined since mid-November with an injury.

“I think he’s been one of the best players off the bench this year. Even when he’s not scoring, he comes in, he just immediately gets an offensive rebound, or immediately gets a turnover, goes to the floor or scores,” Fox continued. “I think he brings so much energy for us, even games where we don’t start well, he comes in and impacts the game. The games that we play well, he comes in, he adds to it. So he brings it every night.”

“He did what he’s been doing all year,” Fox concluded following the team’s performance Victory in the quarterfinals of the NBA Cup against the Los Angeles Lakers.

Over the last few years, Johnson has cemented himself as the team’s ‘ra-ra’ guy. The boisterous forward can often be heard post-game from the locker room in the nearby press conference area and following practice when players meet with the media. That’s energy shifting in the direction of a core that relies on 19-21-year-olds.

“Set the mentality for my team that, ‘OK, we’re not just coming here to play. We’re coming here to win,'” Johnson said of the Cup win in LA.

“We come here to make noise. And that’s my job as a team leader,” Johnson continued. And I feel like I came out and led with my actions in the first quarter, and everybody kind of followed. It was a good atmosphere and we continue to believe in each other, rely on each other throughout the game.

Keldon Johnson ‘Heart and Soul’ of the Spurs

While Fox may have “KJ,” as he’s known to his teammates, for one of the NBA’s most prestigious awards, his head coach is praising him in another way.

“That guy is the heart and soul of the team,” Mitch Johnson said.

“He’s relentless. I thought he did a phenomenal job of harnessing that relentless offensive energy and aggressiveness in the game in the right way, getting the ball off when he saw the crowd and letting the game come to what was needed at that moment. I thought he did a phenomenal job of that.” Johnson described after the 132-119 outcome in Los Angeles.

The season before the arrival of Webby, Johnson led the Spurs in scoring with 22 points per game. Midway through his 7-foot-7 teammate’s freshman year, Johnson was moved to the bench to give another unit a shot in the arm. While foreign at first, it’s a move the 2019 SEC Freshman of the Year has since embraced.

“You see it everywhere, the kid just hits the floor. He puts his body on the line for the betterment of the team every game. We have a lot of big guys and we have the face of the franchise,” Johnson admitted before calling KJ the “heart and soul.”

The first year coach then concluded with what is becoming obvious for these Spurs.

“I think you can see that when you watch us long enough.