{"id":348143,"date":"2026-06-24T06:06:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/348143\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T06:06:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:06:34","slug":"morez-johnson-jr-profile-what-does-the-michigan-man-bring-to-dallas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/348143\/","title":{"rendered":"Morez Johnson Jr. Profile: What does the Michigan Man bring to Dallas?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, Morez Johnson Jr. is a Dallas Maverick.<\/a> The 6\u20199\u201d, 250-pound forward absolutely blew up at the NBA Combine, and that rise seemingly could not be stopped as the first round of the draft unfolded. Mavericks\u2019 President Masai Ujiri has a history of taking large forwards in his past, and Morez certainly fits the bill. Knowing that, how does he fit in around Cooper Flagg and the rest of the Mavs?<\/p>\n

\"James<\/a>\"Mavs<\/p>\n

Morez Johnson Jr. came to Michigan last year looking for a bigger role and the chance to develop into an NBA player. During his freshman year at Illinois, Morez averaged seven points, nearly seven boards and over a block per game in just 17 minutes per night. Suffice to say, he outplayed those numbers for Michigan this year. Johnson Jr. was able to average 13.1 points, over seven boards, an assist and a block per game. Morez earned second-team All-Big Ten team honors, was on the league\u2019s all-defensive team and was elected to the NCAA All-Tournament team.<\/p>\n

Coming into the draft, Johnson Jr. was in tier three at 11th overall on my board. At the time of the draft, I personally had Arizona\u2019s Brayden Burries a tier above him, while slotting Nate Ament just ahead of him in that tier.<\/p>\n

When you think of a glue guy, you don\u2019t often think of 6\u20199\u201d 250-pound humans that move as Morez does. But perhaps Morez\u2019s best attribute is just that he will do whatever it takes to win. You listen to coach Dusty May talk about him; the quote often used was \u201cwe have \u2018Rez, and they don\u2019t.\u201d That\u2019s quite the statement, but you often see it when they play. May never had to call plays to get Johnson going, and he never had to be cautious when it came to defensive assignments, and that\u2019s because of Johnson\u2019s competitive character and the motor that he plays with.<\/p>\n

On the defensive end, the best possible outcome for Morez is as someone who can switch one through five. As noted above, Johnson Jr. is truly a top-tier athlete at that size, which allows him to guard down. But using his bulk, Johnson can also guard all the way up to the five with no issues. Even if he doesn\u2019t quite reach that outcome, Johnson will have no issues guarding most off guards all the way through the center spot.<\/p>\n

Johnson Jr. was a great finisher at the rim and really efficient overall, which speaks to his shot diet and knowing where he wants to get on the floor. He was second in the Big Ten in true shooting percentage at 67.7%, which was top 15 nationally. Even though he was not a prolific shooter from deep, he did shoot 17 for 25 at the combine on spot-up attempts from deep.<\/p>\n

While Johnson did shoot it well at the combine, the overwhelming evidence to date is that he is not only not a great shooter, but he also isn\u2019t comfortable shooting a ton from the outside. Johnson shot just 35 threes on the season in 40 games, with a 3-point rate of just 11% per CBB Analytics. As good as the fit is defensively, the fit offensively with sub-30% 3-point shooter Cooper Flagg, roughly 30% shooter ]Johnson Jr. and potentially Dereck Lively, it\u2019s going to be really hard to space the floor at a requisite level. Coach Dusty May is bullish on his ability to be a spot-up shooter in the NBA, and he\u2019ll need to be proven correct.<\/p>\n

For how efficient Johnson is in the paint, there isn\u2019t a ton of craft in his finishes. In fairness, the bruising physicality that Morez brings to the table is often enough for the college game. But in the NBA, Morez is going to need to find some counters when physicality isn\u2019t the answer. Additionally, the playmaking with Morez is just not there. Even when he draws two down low, the vision to pass is just inconsistent at best. That sort of stacks into the simplicity of his game.<\/p>\n

With Cooper Flagg as the centerpiece, you\u2019re looking for guys who can be complements at the highest level. Guard was going to be one, but they eventually would need to backfill some of the older wings in PJ Washington, Naji Marshall and Klay Thompson. Johnson Jr. gives you a ton of optionality<\/a> on the defensive end, with some potential on offense if he can continue to develop some counters down low and the three-point shot.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s some difficulty with finding a real NBA comp here. He\u2019s such a glue guy who impacts winning, and yet there\u2019s not a huge, quantifiable box-score comparison. ESPN\u2019s Tim MacMahon reported right after the pick that the comps he heard were Bam Adebayo and Al Horford.<\/p>\n

I think the physicality and defensive ability of Isaiah Stewart is a good comparison, while I also think that could be a bit disrespectful to him if he hits the top end. He had a very similar statistical profile to Armando Bacot, Christian Koloko and, ironically enough, Hannes Steinbach, per CBB Analytics.<\/a> I think he can overachieve those comparisons, but much of what Johnson Jr. will bring to the Mavericks will come outside of the box score.<\/p>\n

You can listen to our latest podcast episode<\/a> in the player embedded below, and to make sure you don\u2019t miss a single one moving forward, subscribe to the Pod Maverick podcast feed on Apple<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, Pandora<\/a>, Pocketcasts<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>, Amazon Music<\/a>, and most other places. If you use a feed not listed, let Kirk know.<\/p>\n

You can check out our After Dark Recap podcasts, YouTube Live recordings, and guest shows on the Pod Maverick Podcast feed<\/a>. Please subscribe, rate, and review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Well, Morez Johnson Jr. is a Dallas Maverick. The 6\u20199\u201d, 250-pound forward absolutely blew up at the NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,83929],"class_list":["post-348143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-mavericks-draft"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}