Tre Johnson

Tre Johnson is potentially the most complete shooter in the draft class, but still needs to develop a number of other parts of his game to reach his ceiling.

Offense

Tre Johnson projects as one of the top pure shooters in the class. He can knock down threes with NBA range whether shooting in rhythm, off the dribble, off movement, or from a standstill. He is constantly looking to create space for his step-back. He has the ability to get his balance quickly even off movement and he has a very quick release.

Johnson is constantly looking to set up his shot, whether running the the three point line in transition, punishing defenders who “cheat” on screens as he darts back the other direction, or repositioning himself if his defender hedges to help on defense so he is positioned to receive a pass and drain a shot quickly.  Johnson is also very strong setting himself up for his shot with a quick dribble to get his rhythm or utilizing an escape dribble if a defender flies at him or bites on a pump fake.  He also excels at walking defenders into screens, changing pace to get open, and sprinting into catch-and-shoot opportunities.

Johnson’s isn’t especially fast, but has solid quickness and good handles. He can utilize crossovers, escape dribble, behind the backs, hesitations, change his pace, and has a strong step back. He show the ability to string together moves, which he often needs to be crafty and to create an opening for his jumper. If anything, could use some improvement on his footwork, adding elements like a strong Eurostep to help create opportunities towards the hoop. However, despite his ballhandling, he can struggle to gain any separation and is almost too reliant on bumping defenders to create a sliver of space for his pull up. At 190 pounds that could be less effective in the NBA.

When Tre does get inside, he’s not especially explosive. Johnson uses his compact frame to absorb contact and create space with shoulder bumps and has enough strength to create some space and use his body to try to shield defenders from the ball so he can get an angle to score.  However, he’s a below-the-rim finisher who lacks great bend or fluidity, and quick or explosive jumping ability, or hangtime. Additionally, while he has decent touch on runners and layups, it’s a bit mixed and inconsistent.  He doesn’t quite have the great touch of guys like Harper and even CMB who manage to use spin and hit some higher degree of difficulty shots inside. And he tend to avoid contact while shooting inside (and outside) and doesn’t appear to draw a lot of fouls.  Overall, he really struggles in congestion.  Tre just doesn’t have any trait that really helps him score inside when it gets crowded.  He will benefit a lot from developing more of a runner.  But I can also see the potential in the NBA with more spacing.

As a passer, Johnson shows flashes of real touch and vision.  Honestly, the touch and vision of some of his passes really impressed me compared to some of the other shooters/scorers I have watched who have similarly low total assists.  He can make sharp passes off the live dribble, hit cutters, and deliver skip passes. He’s particularly comfortable throwing shovel passes, lobs, and well-timed leads to teammates. Despite this he can get extreme tunnel vision, especially when keyed in looking for his shot. He gets a lot of teams shading him and sending double at him even when he is just looking to shoot (not turning the corner towards the basket). However, he doesn’t punish teams for this by consistently finding the open man. Any number of players I went back and paused and teams had two defenders fully on him and he had open three point shooters he just ignored while pump faking or stepping back to take his own shot.  The passing flashes are encouraging, but unlocking more consistent reads could raise his ceiling significantly.

Tre is not much of a rebounder, as he doesn’t have the length, athleticism, leaping, or even really the timing to be great. Most offensive and defensive rebounds were outside of the key or bounded off a couple of players. When he gets defensive rebounds though, he can  turn and push right up court.

His turnovers were fairly limited for someone with so many touches and drives.  Most were spread across different types of mistakes;  a few mishandled dribbles, some miscommunications, occasional forced passes, and getting caught in traps along the baseline. Impressively, despite being the primary offensive engine.  If anything, he probably needs to clean up his judgement a bit on cross court passes that will be trickier in the NBA.

Defense

Defensively, Johnson raises more questions. He doesn’t always seem to play with full effort and can play upright at times, though this might be partly from carrying such an oversized offensive load. Tre oddly doesn’t play like he is 6’6” and often looks smaller on tape.  He doesn’t seem to have especially long arms (note: his wingspan is 6’10.25, so this is stylistic to how he plays and not actually based on his actual wingspan) or quick / explosive jumping ability, which makes it hard for him to contest shots if the offensive player gets some cushion, such as on a step back or if Tre goes under a screen to far or is simply running out to the line

Tre can struggle guarding the perimeter partially due to defensive deficiencies and partially due to effort.  He often takes poor angles navigating screens or when defending in isolation, and doesn’t fight through contact. His screen navigation is particularly weak. Even on a weak DHO, just sort of slows down and stops fighting.  Or in some cases just takes such a horrible or wide angle to avoid the contact that he’s completely taken out of the play. He takes some really bad angles overall. There are times he almost just trails his man and then stops instead of getting back into the play. 

And as strong as Johnson can play bumping people on offense, he seems to get bumped back or knocked off balance easily on defense.  Whether it’s balance, strength, or center of gravity it’s night and day.  I am hesitant to call him contact adverse given he will use his body to dislodge defenders, but he does seem to try to avoid a lot of other contact leading to a low free throw rate, bad angles on screens, and generally shying away from contact on defense or rebounding.

However, he does appear to have pretty decent lateral speed and ability change of direction both north to south and east to west, but just doesn’t move fast enough or have enough length or spriginess to really take advantage of it.  While a bit slower north to south at times it  appears to be from poor footwork as opposed to not being able to change direction or slow restart ability.  Tre also just bites on enough fakes and counter moves, that while he is not slow to change direction he can be far enough out of the play that he just can’t get back in and make a difference, especially with his inability to recover.  In other words, while he does have some physical limitations he also has some tools that could help him become a passable defender if he more fully commits and improves his defensive decision making.

Tre has some awareness of helping, tagging down, and rotating, but overall, doesn’t really provide much congestion inside or ability to switch up and guard even bigger wings.  Tennessee hunted him relentlessly in their SEC tournament win over Texas.  Which is not great when a potential top 5 pick can be hunted in college.  Additionally, his closeouts helping on the perimeter are especially problematic, he struggles to recover if beaten, lacks the explosion to contest effectively, and often gets caught committing too hard to try to contest the shot.  All of his other issues are magnified on these close outs, he can’t contest very well so has to commit and if offensive player pump fakes or drives by him, he just can’t catch up.

There’s a clear discrepancy between how strong he plays offensively and how easily he gets bumped off balance or displaced on defense. He also avoids contact on this end — failing to rotate, contest, or bump drivers — and generally doesn’t provide resistance inside. While he shows flashes of decent lateral mobility and change-of-direction ability, he bites on fakes, takes poor angles, and is often caught trailing with no ability to recover.

Tre’s awareness seems to vary, at times, he does seem to be rotating and helping and hustling to track his man. But on other plays he seems completely unaware of screeners, will stand in no man’s land, and loses track of his man. He really makes some baffling decisions that it is hard to just write off as him coasting a bit on defense. Sometimes Tre just loses his man while ball watching. It echoes a bit of what we saw on offense with not passing enough despite having some good ability.

Johnson does have active hands and shows some ability to generate steals;  mostly from loose balls, intercepting soft passes, or gambling to try to jump into passing lanes. While he occasionally jumps a route and turns defense into offense, his lack of length and leaping limits his impact in these scenarios.  And like with other problematic aspects of his defense, if he gambles for a steal and misses it, he’s just out of the play.