![\"Which](\"https:\/\/platform.bulletsforever.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/52\/2026\/09\/gettyimages-2284829142.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,0,100,100\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhich direction will Tre Johnson\u2019s career go? NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Before diving into the comps, I remind readers of what I wrote earlier in the series this year: these comps are not necessarily predictive. The exercise is to see what players have similar production at a similar age. With very young players (Johnson was 19 last season), similar starts can result in wildly divergent career paths.<\/p>\n
Johnson had some injury issues but managed 60 games and 1,443 minutes last season, which included 42 starts. What I saw from his rookie season largely reinforced my pre-draft evaluation of Johnson \u2014 both strengths and weaknesses.<\/p>\n
The strength: shooting. His three-point percentage wasn\u2019t great, but he plays with the confidence of a great shooter. His form was good, the release quick, and he was perfectly to let rip even when closely defended. The underlying shooting skill was evident in his 87.4% free throw shooting, which was elite. Compare with the 87.3% rookie free throw percentage of Kevin Durant, for example.<\/p>\n
The anticipated weaknesses were also present however. Which\u2026well\u2026was kinda everything else. Lack of athletic explosiveness (just 7% of his field goal attempts were in the at-rim are, and nearly 18% were in the floater range), and lack of all-around dimension to his game. \u201cDimension\u201d in this case meaning defense, rebounding, play making.<\/p>\n
That shooting though \u2014 45.8% from 10-16 feet and 51.1% on long twos. Those midrange percentages are enough to attract defensive attention, as is the three-point threat. He\u2019ll shoot better from deep as he gains strength and experience.<\/p>\n
That said, it\u2019s tough to excel on a diet of midrange jumpers. Even very good shooters of long twos often are leaking efficiency. They\u2019re sometimes necessary, and they\u2019re a good tool to have in the bag for when you can\u2019t get to the rim or get a three. But they shouldn\u2019t be a first option.<\/p>\n
The solution to getting so many shots from floater range isn\u2019t for Johnson to work on a better floater. Rather, I\u2019d prefer to see him work on his body and craft to get to the rim or get fouled. He averaged just 2.8 free throw attempts per 100 team possessions (about half the league average) \u2014 an indication that he wasn\u2019t stressing defenses.<\/p>\n
Hopefully the defense and perhaps playmaking will come around. I think he could become a \u201cgood enough\u201d playmaker with experience despite the 1.3 to 1 assist-to-turnover ratio (league average was 1.9).<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s talk doppelgangers. For those just coming in, this is an annual \u201cdog days\u201d of the NBA tradition in which I run players through my Statistical Doppelganger Machine. The Machine then tells me which NBA player seasons since 1977-78 most closely resemble the reference player.<\/p>\n
The Machine\u2019s algorithm uses 14 categories, including age. It does not use position or size but tends to produce comparison players from a similar position group. In other words, it\u2019s rare for a point guard to get a center comp and vice versa.<\/p>\n
Tre Mann | 2021-22 | Oklahoma City Thunder | Age: 20 \u2014 Mann showed some promise as a rookie but hasn\u2019t managed to find his career footing. At least not yet. He\u2019s hovered around replacement level for five seasons and has gotten hurt a lot too. He might have a shot in Washington this year after the team acquired him for financial reasons. If he makes the final roster.Jamal Murray | 2016-17 | Denver Nuggets | Age: 19 \u2014 This is the comp that has me stoked. My initial reaction was to mentally reject it because Murray has become a very good playmaker. But that happened later. As a rookie, these two produced in very similar ways (per possession) as rookies \u2014 right down to two-point, three-point, and free throw shooting. One big and probably meaningful difference \u2014 22.6% of Murray\u2019s field goal attempts were at-rim.Coby White | 2019-20 | Chicago Bulls | Age: 19 \u2014 Smaller and \u201cmore point guard\u201d than Johnson, but the production patterns are similar and White\u2019s playmaking uptick happened later.Tim Hardaway Jr. | 2014-15 | New York Knicks | Age: 22 \u2014 This feels like something of a \u201cworst case\u201d for Johnson, which wouldn\u2019t be bad at all. Hardaway is a good shooter and good-enough defender to have real value to good teams.Malik Monk | 2019-20 | Charlotte Hornets | Age: 21 \u2014 I hesitate to include Monk here, though I can see the similarities despite Monk having better athletic tools. Monk\u2019s career got sidetracked as he dealt with some personal issues and he emerged as a useful off-the-bench contributor when he moved on from Charlotte.<\/p>\n
Some recognizable names in the honorable mention category:<\/p>\n
Keon JohnsonTyler HerroNick Smith Jr.Klay ThompsonNickeil Alexander-Walker<\/p>\n
While Murray\u2019s name landing second had me kinda stoked, I think there are enough stylistic and athletic differences to suggest that\u2019s not a realistic trajectory for Johnson. Klay Thompson seems more the archetype (especially if Johnson can get stronger and improve his defense) or perhaps Reggie Miller (who did even less rebounding and playmaking as a youngster than Johnson did last season).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One the Tre Johnson comps produced by The Statistical Doppelganger Machine has me\u2026hmm\u2026the words \u201ckinda stoked\u201d flowed from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":836162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99,63905],"class_list":["post-836161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-washington-wizards-statistical-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=836161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}