There’s nothing Jalen Johnson can’t do
But to take the next step, he needs to evolve

You ever play Pokemon? Based on our limited demographic data, it’s a fair bet you probably did (or do!).

In the Pokemon world, there’s an original-150 ‘mon called Eevee. Eevee is a well-rounded, reasonably capable battler in its own right, but it’s unique in that it can transform into an unprecedented eight different creatures. For most pocket monsters, evolution is a linear, predetermined thing further improving a Pokemon’s pre-existing strengths and weaknesses; for Eevee, it’s a choice whose outcome can result in a totally new beast.

A disproportionate amount of basketball analysis is obsessed with projecting what promising young players can become; this article you’re reading is part of the problem. I can’t help myself! Like Eevee, Jalen Johnson has more branching paths to stardom than any of his peers.

Let’s start with the obvious: Johnson isn’t the best forward in the East. There’s the enormous shadow of a certain Grecian Freakian, for one, and the family-friendly, outsized competence of current NBA champion Jayson Tatum, for two.

Certainly, you can make strong cases for many others; I’d even agree with you on several. But nobody in the conference has as few weaknesses as the fourth-year forward, making him one of the most exciting young players in the league both to watch now and project going forward.

Surface-level box score stats pop like the weasel in a children’s song. Johnson is currently averaging 19.8 points, 9.9 rebounds (so close to the beauty of 20/10), 5.5 assists, 1.3 steals, and 1.1 blocks per game. Victor Wembanyama and Anthony Davis clear in the Western Conference, but east of the Mississippi, you know who else hits those benchmarks?

Johnson measured 6’8” at the combine, but he’s grown since then. He’s stronger than he looks, and he looks plenty strong. He has a mean face-up game. There’s far more patience here than most not-quite-23-year-olds possess; he looks deceivingly slow, in the way that helicopter blades do, before you realize he’s simply thinking fast.

Truthfully, on a team with Trae Young and his twelve-pack of assists, you don’t need to do too much self-creation, but Johnson can hit that button when it’s needed. About a third of Johnson’s makes are unassisted this year, up from a quarter last season. He’ll try a few moves, reset, wait, wait, wait, then explode. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so let’s rack up the word count:

That restraint is reserved for the halfcourt, though. There ain’t much waiting on the break. Johnson is a locomotive in transition, barreling through smaller defenders like they aren’t even there:

Plenty of forwards can get to the rack. Johnson’s also developing a potent three-pointer. He’s hitting 36% on the year, excluding heaves, and his percentages are roughly equal on both catch-and-shoots and his handful of pull-up attempts. He’s improved from the outside in each of his four years so far, and while the three-pointer isn’t and likely won’t ever be his fastball, it’s a viable off-speed pitch.

Johnson’s dunks tend to resonate with the masses for good reasons. He’s developed a reputation as a body-bagger, and now, dudes don’t want to be involved. Here, Giannis Antetokounmpo sees him coming and steps demurely to the side so as not to accidentally impede him. Brook Lopez starts to challenge, realizes too late who it is, hesitates, is lost:

Johnson is shooting 73% at the rim this season, about the same as Anthony Davis and Tatum. His command of the sky helps; he floats where others fall. I love this play, where he waits for two Hornets forming an aerial wall to succumb to gravity before laying it up:

It’s not all physical tools like hops and shoulders, although he certainly maximizes those advantages. He has antelopian grace around the basket:

The rim attacks are eye-catching, but for those who would rather watch basketball than hang with loved ones, the passing stands out more than anything. Johnson has become a legitimate point forward. His specialty is hitting Atlanta’s bigs with gentle lobs. Sometimes, when he’s feeling extra saucy, he’ll whip out a hook pass to make Karl-Anthony Towns proud:

For what it’s with, Johnson is the only player in the league’s top-10 most prolific alley-oop combos as both a passer and an ooper.

He also possesses surprising creativity with the rock. Not many players would have found the proper access angle for this ball to slip through (and note his block that starts the possession!):

Johnson has only played one game without Trae Young this season, but he led the Hawks to a win over the dreaded Celtics while dropping double-digit dimes. With Young around, we’ll never know exactly how high Johnson’s playmaking upside is, but there’s untapped potential still bottled up.

The same is true on defense, where Johnson is good at everything, great at a few things, and still growing. Isolation? The Hawks have several weak links; offenses don’t even try to go at Johnson. But for what it’s worth, Synergy says that teams have scored a whopping four (4) points on 16 isolation possessions targeting Johnson. You don’t need an abacus to recognize that 0.25 points per possession is pretty, pretty low (and he was 90th percentile as an isolation defender last year in a bigger sample, too).

The on-ball stuff is nice, but Johnson is a huge part of the Hawks’ aggressive help-and-recover defensive scheme, too. Atlanta wants to protect the paint and then sprint out to shooters, using length and quickness to bother them. It’s a hectic defensive style that can lead to players like Johnson overhelping or jumping out of position, but it also plays to Johnson’s strengths — and leads to some pretty great highlights:

Even when he doesn’t get the block, Johnson is an eager weakside helper, unafraid to engage in a dogfight. Opponents are only shooting 59% at the rim against him, a stingier mark than Antetokounmpo or Draymond Green can boast, and his combination of Moon-Shoe leaping and length is invaluable when repelling paint invaders.

He’s not flawless defensively, but he makes active mistakes, rather than passive ones. And after his work is done, Johnson peerlessly punctuates possessions. His 20.0% defensive rebounding rate is 98th percentile among the league’s forwards (and he’s an above-median offensive rebounder, too).

What can’t Johnson do? His only real weakness, a high turnover rate, is a byproduct of experimentation and growth. He’s a 22-year-old (for another week, anyway) experiencing far more ballhandling responsibility than he’s ever had; I’d expect the miscues to simmer down as Johnson gains more experience. Johnson could stand to be a little more physical as a screen-setter, too, but that’s really looking for nits.

At this point, there isn’t much Johnson isn’t good at. But right now, he ranks as sort of a B+ in nearly everything. He’s a borderline All-Star as a jack-of-all-trades; to get into All-NBA conversations in the next few years, he’ll need to find what he’s elite at — defensive rebounding, sadly, doesn’t quite cut it as a signature skill. His next most advanced area, playmaking, likely won’t be maximized next to Young. Can his shooting level up further? Can he become a mini-Antetokounmpo attacking off the dribble? Can he become a defensive terror to give Eastern forwards night sweats?

The fun part about Johnson is that you can talk to eight different people and get eight different expectations. Like with Eevee, Johnson’s path forward is subject to personal preference. Even if he never improves at all, he’s a high-level starter already, but there are multiverse permutations where he’s a 28-point scorer, averaging nine assists per game, or racking up All-Defensive nods. (His checkered health history, mostly due to ankle problems, must be mentioned, but ankle health is hard to project and no fun to talk about.)

Johnson signed one of the league’s most delightfully simple contract extensions this summer: $30 million annually for five years. He’s already worth every penny, and soon, health permitting, he’ll be a bargain. That sort of contractual security is important from a development standpoint; he won’t feel pressed to hit certain statistical benchmarks or to hunt his own shot. He can improve at his own pace.

We’re not even a third of the way through Johnson’s fourth campaign. Like a high school senior looking at colleges, Johnson has the whole world in front of him, but growth curves aren’t linear. In Pokemon, developing Eevee is as simple as feeding it an easily obtained item. In the real world, it’s up to the Hawks and Johnson to figure out how he can stretch himself further. While I’m not 100% sure what his final evolution will look like, tracking the journey will be a blast. 

Mike Shearer also covers the NBA for HoopsHype, Locked On Sports, and his bestselling Substack, Basketball Poetry. You can find him on X @bballispoetry or Bluesky @basketballpoetry.