An unknown young man in today's Lakers' home game against the Jazz will be the key to the Lakers' ability to win, and this person is Stanley Johnson. Johnson came off the bench today for 25 minutes on 7-of-9 shooting and recorded 15 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists. Among them, his plus-minus value is as high as positive 18, the highest in the whole game. It can be said that it is because of Stanley Johnson's consecutive points in the last quarter today that the Lakers can win the game smoothly.
Of course, half of the credit for Johnson's success in the final quarter today is due to James. James gave Johnson a lot of cover in the final quarter of the day, and he got a lot of scoring opportunities. We can clearly feel that the Lakers now attach great importance to Johnson. He's now a new favorite of the Lakers. This can be clearly felt from his average playing time per game. You must know that Johnson signed a short contract with the Lakers for only ten days, but he got so much playing time per game, and even his playing time today is almost equal to that of Westbrook. This proves that Vogel trusts Stanley Johnson very much, and James himself trusts him very much.
Why did Johnson attack in the fourth quarter today? This is largely due to the encouragement of James. After today's game, Vogel admitted that the reason why the team let Johnson attack Gobert in the fourth quarter was a suggestion made by James. This shows James's trust in Johnson.
Johnson is only 25 years old this year, this age of the player is full of vitality, and Johnson is very strong, he has the ability to attack opponents. Today, the Lakers got a lot of opportunities after many blocks, and those opportunities were not anticipated by the Lakers. It can be seen that James has clearly realized on the court that Johnson has a chance to be a surpriser in the final quarter today, because the opponent seems to despise him in defensive strategy in the final quarter today.
Johnson has a high probability of staying with the Lakers after the end of the season and will get a relatively large contract. James highlighted today after the game that Johnson is a top ten player in the draft and that he is very young. Now that Johnson has been blessed by James, his future is immeasurable, and from the perspective of our fans, Johnson is a player who is hard enough and has a positive attitude, and he deserves a better contract.