A seemingly easy query is posed to Atlanta Hawks ahead Jalen Johnson, the ascendant 23-year-old human fireworks show who’s presently having fun with what is likely to be this NBA season’s most significant glow-up: What’s your function?
Johnson pauses: “I’d describe it as … attempting my hardest to … I imply, my function could be …” He begins to snort and takes one other stab at it. “I do know that is cliché. I do know loads of individuals have most likely mentioned this in interviews with you. However I simply attempt to influence successful in each approach potential.”
The query will get to the guts of what makes Johnson as singular as he’s spectacular, a rising star whose recreation incorporates no caveats. He can do just about every part that issues on a basketball courtroom. There’s no regarding “yeah, however” to his talent set, he unleashes his expertise utilizing a strong, effervescent 6-foot-9 physique, and he’s snug and assured in nearly any situation.
Johnson is considered one of simply 4 gamers averaging not less than 19 factors, 10 rebounds, and 5 assists per recreation this season. The opposite three are Nikola Jokic, Domantas Sabonis, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Not like them, Johnson doesn’t perform in an offense that revolves round him. As an alternative, his staff’s system advantages from all of the methods he enhances it. Johnson is daring however strong, well-rounded and dominant with out a script, trendy and timeless on the similar time, defying conventional definitions as a paradigm-shifting consultant of an NBA period that calls for two-way adaptability and frowns upon specialization.
Being full is one thing his dad, Roderick, who performed school basketball at Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Southeast Missouri State earlier than a two-year skilled profession in Poland, has preached since Johnson was little. “You don’t wish to be restricted in simply doing one factor or simply concentrate on one factor as a result of if that a part of your recreation will get minimize off, you may nonetheless be an element. That’s the problem that I tackle each recreation,” Johnson says. “Whether or not it’s my rebounding, whether or not it’s my transition playmaking, whether or not it’s simply hitting open pictures.”
Johnson’s worth is obvious—the Hawks are a team-high plus-36 when he’s on the courtroom and a team-low minus-105 when he sits—and his stats are admirable sufficient. However, aesthetically, there simply aren’t very many gamers who mix dunk-contest-crashing bounce with a capability to know the place everyone is and a need to present them the ball. In the entire league, solely Tyrese Haliburton has handed extra instances than Johnson this season. The one gamers who’ve seen their true utilization charge rise increased over the previous two years are Scottie Barnes and Franz Wagner.
His emergence comes after a disappointing 36-win season, when the Hawks had been misplaced and determined for stability, composure, and hope. As commerce rumors swirled round Trae Younger (the longtime face of the franchise), Dejounte Murray (an All-Star they traded for in 2022), and almost each different mainstay on final 12 months’s roster, Atlanta gained the lottery, chosen Zaccharie Risacher, after which swung a coup, exchanging Murray for Dyson Daniels, Larry Nance Jr., the Lakers’ 2025 first-round decide, and one other one in 2027.
It was a transformative offseason that helped rectify an period that had gone astray after an Jap Convention finals look in 2021. Not solely did Atlanta’s entrance workplace add a number of thrilling, younger items who make sense subsequent to Younger, but it surely additionally created a craterous void for Johnson to fill—giving him the liberty to exhibit all of the alternative ways he impacts successful on either side of the ball.
When teammates are requested about his function, the responses vary from rhapsodic soliloquies to unsubtle gestures—a chuckle, side-eye, or clean stare—that talk his immeasurable affect on the motion.
That motherfucker can do no matter he needs on the market, and there’s nothing individuals can do about it. … I believe, truthfully, he’s been most likely our general greatest participant this 12 months.
—Onyeka Okongwu
“I might say he’s the motor behind our staff. If Trae is the brains of the operation, JJ is what retains it transferring,” Nance tells me. “We’re greatest after we play quick, and, truthfully, anytime he will get a rebound, it’s an automated quick break. Guys that try this, at that measurement, the names you’re speaking about are All-NBA names. … He doesn’t actually have performs known as for him—the entire recreation, the way in which we play, is his play name.”
In response to Sportradar, Johnson is producing 1.34 factors per likelihood in transition, which ranks third out of 61 gamers who’ve logged not less than 75 performs.
“We go as he goes. No matter you wish to name that function, it’s one of the vital essential roles you may have on a staff,” Hawks guard Garrison Mathews says. “I imply, he’s the man. Him and Trae are the blokes.” Clint Capela seems down and begins to depend his fingers: “Scoring, rebounding, playmaking. He can guard, has size to dam pictures.” Atlanta’s beginning heart runs out of digits and smiles. “It’s kinda like … every part. He does every part, proper?”
Put in additional blunt phrases by Hawks backup huge man Onyeka Okongwu, considered one of Jalen’s closest buddies on the staff: “That motherfucker can do no matter he needs on the market, and there’s nothing individuals can do about it. … I believe, truthfully, he’s been most likely our general greatest participant this 12 months.”
That assertion is debatable, however the mere proven fact that it’s being mentioned out loud is trajectory-altering for a corporation that’s spent the previous seven years on the lookout for a bona fide costar for Younger. If there’s one factor to take from Johnson’s play to this point this season, it’s that Atlanta can name the search off.
Chosen twentieth within the 2021 draft, Johnson was plopped onto a deep Hawks staff that had simply reached the convention finals and was ostensibly on the verge of title rivalry. Alternative was restricted. As a rookie, he performed 21 video games for the G League’s School Park Skyhawks and simply 120 complete minutes within the NBA. The following season, Johnson cracked the Hawks’ rotation however wasn’t rather more than a tenth man, wedged behind a frontcourt that featured John Collins, De’Andre Hunter, Capela, and Okongwu.
“I really feel like that is his second 12 months,” Younger joked final week after Atlanta beat New York within the NBA Cup quarterfinals, a recreation that may’ve been the largest of Johnson’s profession up up to now. (In 41 minutes, he bought 21 factors, 15 rebounds, seven assists, two steals, and two blocks.)
Coming into 2024-25, it wasn’t laborious to foresee a breakout season. After the Hawks traded Collins to the Utah Jazz in 2023, Johnson’s minutes greater than doubled, and his scoring common tripled. This previous summer time, Murray’s transfer to New Orleans saved Johnson’s manufacturing on a hockey stick trajectory with no roof in sight. Proper now he’s averaging the fifth-most touches per recreation within the league, 23 greater than final season—the third-largest leap amongst all starters.
The expanded function was by no means explicitly communicated earlier than this season started, although. “It was a type of issues that I believe everyone simply type of knew,” Johnson says. On October 21, he signed a five-year, $150 million contract extension that confirmed his function as an integral constructing block for a corporation that had been heading within the incorrect route. However Johnson’s fourth season didn’t begin easily. In his first three video games, he shot simply 29.7 % from the ground, and that stretch culminated in a blowout loss to the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder during which he scored a season-low seven factors. Trying again on it, Johnson says he put an excessive amount of strain on himself. “I used to be overthinking what I do,” he says. “After I’m not overthinking something and once I’m not predicting what’s going to be subsequent, that’s once I’m at my greatest.”
Constructive talks with coaches and teammates inspired him to belief his instincts and all of the work he put in throughout the offseason. Since then, he hasn’t seemed again, averaging 20.4 factors, 9.9 rebounds, and 5.9 assists per recreation since November 1, with a 59.7 true capturing proportion.
The outcomes have shifted what Atlanta can do, accelerating its rebuild whereas lessening any urgency for extra dramatic change. A giant purpose for that’s that Johnson has proven he can prosper whereas nonetheless making everybody round him higher. Whether or not it’s the 21-year-old Daniels or 19-year-old Risacher, Atlanta’s different core items can’t assist however admire the way in which Johnson places them in positions to succeed.
“I believe he enhances this staff completely,” Daniels says. “There’s no weak point to his recreation.”
Simply watch these two no-look slingshots to Risacher within the nook. They’re the kind of passes that engender belief and inject confidence.
Johnson is a fountain of basketball generosity, somebody who single-handedly eliminates the kind of my-turn, your-turn rigidity that Atlanta suffered by means of with Murray and Younger as its two main scorers. He feeds and eats: keen sous-chef {and professional} style tester.
“That’s simply how I grew up enjoying basketball, and that’s how I take pleasure in enjoying basketball,” Johnson says. “I simply love the sensation I get from making one thing occur for considered one of my teammates as a result of I do know what it does for me personally and the way I really feel after it.” He grew up learning LeBron James and Magic Johnson (his dad’s favourite participant), memorizing passes they made out of the mid-post and within the open ground. As soon as he sprouted to be the identical top, Johnson realized he might create comparable alternatives for teammates in a singular approach.
That effortlessly selfless mentality, an innate, unteachable understanding that wins are simpler and extra pure to come back by when 5 gamers are a risk as a substitute of 1, isn’t typical of a 23-year-old. “It makes him a particular man and a man that you simply like to play with,” Capela says. “ that he’s gonna discover you. It makes every part a lot simpler for the entire staff.”
Regardless of having tangible bodily benefits, contact across the basket, and a capability to maneuver just like the wind whereas dribbling the ball, Johnson doesn’t isolate or put up up fairly often. The technique of his manufacturing, proper now, are atypical of a standard All-Star candidate; they materialize throughout the circulate of his unpredictable rhythm. There are 35 gamers who common not less than 70 touches per recreation; solely Domantas Sabonis averages fewer seconds per contact.
“He, in loads of methods, represents how I believe our staff has to play to create the excessive ceiling that we now have,” Hawks head coach Quin Snyder tells me. “Anytime he’s making fast choices, no matter these choices are.”
Extra on Jalen Johnson
In different phrases, Johnson is completely happy to make the additional move, swing the ball from one facet of the courtroom to the opposite, or get off it whereas the opponent continues to be reacting to one thing else. Typically he will get somewhat too adventurous—“I do know I undoubtedly want to chop down on a few of my turnovers; however that simply type of [comes] with the rising pains, ? I’m studying from that also and gonna undoubtedly get higher as time goes on,” he admits—however general, Johnson’s spontaneous playmaking all around the courtroom, from myriad angles, in varied conditions, makes Atlanta’s offense so laborious to arrange for. He can skip a lefty dime to the nook on one play after which drop a behind-the-back bounce move whereas racing full pace within the open ground a couple of minutes later.
“I hate doing this, but it surely is somewhat bit Bron-esque,” says Nance, who was James’s teammate in Cleveland throughout the 2017-18 season. “With sure guys, it’s like, ‘Hey, these are their performs. Right here is the place they’re going to catch the ball. Right here’s how we load as much as cease it.’ Fairly static gamers. [But] you may’t game-plan for anyone like Bron or Giannis or JJ as a result of how do you game-plan for 6-foot-9, 240 coming downhill on the pace of a guard that may move like a guard? I don’t know. Clearly, NBA groups don’t know both.”
Nance nonetheless can’t course of one play towards the Celtics, the place Johnson flipped a lob move that left sufficient of an impression on the veteran for him to have the ability to cue it up on demand. (Throughout our dialog, Nance rattled off the possession’s actual time stamp within the second quarter.)
“It was the kind of play that you simply simply don’t see from anyone that younger, from anyone that inexperienced. I can’t recover from it as a result of to have the ability to make that learn whereas being guarded by Jrue Vacation, … he’s simply capable of take one dribble and throw this from-the-hip lob. You shouldn’t be capable to try this,” Nance says. “He does issues and he doesn’t perceive how troublesome they’re.”
Johnson’s imaginative and prescient is uncanny by itself—when connected to his trapeze-act athleticism, it makes him actually particular. The listing of defenders Johnson has dunked on this season is lengthy, but it surely’s shorter than the one counting each participant who’s gone out of their method to keep away from changing into the sufferer of a viral second. In a single play towards New Orleans, Johnson gathered a pocket move on the free throw line, took one step, after which proceeded to rock the rim. Pelicans rookie heart Yves Missi, the low man presupposed to rotate over, seemed on from just a few toes away with cement in his sneakers. Missi’s teammate, Trey Murphy III, was so disgusted he motioned for a timeout:
“All of the our bodies he catches,” Okongwu says, “he’s put just a few of us within the basket. I’m like, ‘Rattling, I want I might try this.’”
As Johnson’s manufacturing has continued to rise, so has his standing, across the league and inside his follow facility. Such an immense, balanced expertise deserves a level of accountability that’s usually shouldered by franchise gamers—one thing that has the potential to overwhelm anybody who averaged 2.4 and 5.6 factors per recreation of their first two NBA seasons, as Johnson did.
He’s nonetheless on the bottom ground of dealing with these duties, however there are some promising indicators that he’s outfitted to handle them. One got here a couple of minutes into the fourth quarter of a November recreation towards the Pelicans, when Brandon Ingram scored 5 factors in a couple of minute to trim Atlanta’s lead. On the subsequent play, Johnson ran over to Ingram’s man, David Roddy, and instructed him to verify Pelicans ahead Jeremiah Robinson-Earl as a substitute. Ingram scored one basket the remainder of the sport, which Atlanta gained comfortably.
The sequence did greater than showcase Johnson’s skill to neutralize a fantastic scorer. It demonstrated the type of aggressive mindset that makes family names simply that. “We had been making somewhat run on the offensive finish, however we weren’t getting stops but,” Johnson remembers. “I simply needed that matchup. I needed to tackle that problem.”
To his veteran teammates, moments like this are telling. “When shit issues, … when it got here time to [say], ‘Hey, we want a cease,’ there was no query about who was on the ball. When Kawhi [Leonard] was doing his factor. Giannis, too,” Nance says. “Positive, you gotta save your vitality, … use it properly. However when it issues, it’s your time. And that’s a serious step for him, of realizing, ‘Oh, yeah, I’m younger. However I’m that man.’”
Nance sees Johnson flourishing earlier than his eyes, enjoying like somebody who out of the blue deserves All-Star consideration, and he can’t think about how a lot of a whirlwind it have to be to not solely regulate to life as a focus on opposing scouting studies but additionally be taught that it’s OK to talk up and voice an opinion.
“Some stars, you gotta have some asshole to you,” Nance says. “So, like, for those who see one thing, you say it. If you’d like one thing, you say it. And if I had been to try this, ‘Yeah, Larry’s an ass.’ However I’m getting him to appreciate: ‘Some guidelines don’t apply to you, man. You possibly can go searching and depend what number of guys are doing what you’re doing on the courtroom and see how they communicate with their teammates, see how they command respect in a locker room, see how they carry themselves. In the event you don’t like one thing that’s occurring on the market, change it! You’re a man right here. You’re a man within the league. The higher you might be, the extra enter you get on the way you’re used.’ Getting him to grasp that’s not excessive upkeep, that’s not imply. You’ve earned it. You’re right here. You’ve arrived.”
As Johnson continues to ripen, he and Younger might develop the kind of pressure that’s been widespread all through NBA historical past. However, to this point, there’s purpose to imagine he can coexist with and intensify Atlanta’s three-time All-Star level guard in ways in which haven’t materialized with anybody else on this period of Hawks basketball. Proper now, 71 of Younger’s assists are to Johnson, which is essentially the most any participant has fed a teammate this season.
“It’s really easy enjoying with Trae,” Johnson says. “It’s type of simple to grasp and skim what he needs to do and what he sees. It’s simple to create openings for myself, and with him, you simply at all times bought to be prepared, as a result of I do know once I’m making a move I would like all my guys to be prepared. That is solely the start for us, and we simply hold getting higher as time goes on as we proceed to determine this factor out.”
What actually makes Johnson the very best teammate Younger has ever had is how he concurrently thrives in and away from what has lengthy been a formulaic, pick-and-roll-heavy ecosystem. Johnson burns vivid on his personal and is productive sufficient to diversify Atlanta’s on-court model for the betterment of everybody concerned. With out dropping the charitable traits that make him so distinct, Johnson needs to combine in some extra conventional scoring probabilities which can be emblematic of each nice offensive participant—attending to kill spots on the ground at any time when he needs and placing the ball within the basket.
It’s one thing he already works on throughout the offseason together with his coach, Chris Johnson, who calls him infrequently to ask why Jalen didn’t benefit from sure strikes they spent hours honing within the gymnasium. That may come, although. Johnson is formidable with out a large ego, continually asking Nance and Capela about a number of the Corridor of Fame teammates they’ve performed with searching for absorbable details about their exercise habits. In type, they take each query significantly, realizing each morsel of recommendation gained’t be wasted on somebody so sincerely curious.
“You see all the very best gamers within the league, Giannis and Jokic, they simply do it each evening,” Capela says. “That’s the distinction, proper? If you watch the very best gamers, it’s like, ‘I had 40 tonight. Let me get 40 [tomorrow].’ Like that’s the kind of mentality he’s going to need to get to to be among the many licensed All-Stars. However I see him engaged on his physique, on his steadiness, on his shot, within the weight room. He’s gonna get there.”
The query of whether or not he seems like among the best gamers at his place isn’t a lot of a query in any respect to individuals across the Hawks. To Jalen Johnson, if he stays on the monitor he’s presently on, significant recognition will care for itself.
“I simply really feel like I bought what it takes to be a constant All-Star on this league,” he says.
It’s not exterior the realm of chance for him to make it this 12 months. Mix Johnson’s statistical profile on a aggressive staff that’s overwhelmed the Celtics (with out Trae), Cavaliers (twice), Bucks, and Knicks (twice) with the variety of accidents which have knocked out a number of assumed shoo-ins (Joel Embiid, Paul George, Paolo Banchero, Wagner) and what you will have is an effective case.
“Clearly, we now have to maintain successful,” Nance says. “However I’ve seen gamers that haven’t affected the sport as a lot as he has [become] All-Stars.”
Voters (followers, the media, and coaches) are typically hesitant to reward preliminary breakthrough seasons, as a substitute falling again on names they’re extra conversant in. This might harm Johnson, notably with Younger drawing appreciable consideration together with his league-leading 12.1 assists per recreation. However Johnson’s physique of labor firmly places him within the combine, and makes him probably extra deserving than a number of others.
“I simply gotta hold working. I gotta hold placing the staff first with every part and simply hold stacking wins,” he says. “That’s the primary factor. I really feel like I simply gotta hold waking individuals up, man.”
Michael Pina
Michael Pina is a senior workers author at The Ringer who covers the NBA.
