When Cam Johnson went out for breakfast recently, his meal was accompanied by a taste of how Nuggets fans feel about him.
The funny thing is, he wasn’t even in Denver. He was in Arizona, where he spends his offseasons, “just casually chilling” at a restaurant near his house. It was a couple of days after the Brooklyn Nets had traded him to the Nuggets for Michael Porter Jr. and a 2031 first-round pick.
“This whole table, I’m talking 10 old people, were shaking. Like beside themselves,” Johnson recalled on Friday, when he was formally introduced at Ball Arena. “They’re like, ‘We’ve been Nuggets fans for so long. We live in Arizona. We’re huge Nuggets fans.’ The ladies almost crying and stuff. I’m like, ‘Oh, this is awesome.’”
Johnson has a lot to figure out still. He and Porter have discussed the possibility of swapping homes, but he doesn’t quite know where he’ll live in the Denver area yet. The good news is that an offseason trade leaves him time to get settled in his third NBA city, where he’ll start for a title-contending team alongside three-time league MVP Nikola Jokic.
“It’s a tough style to play against,” Johnson said solemnly, reflecting on his encounters as a Net and Phoenix Sun.
Now he gets to learn what it’s like from the other side: “That’s the kind of basketball I want to play, where everybody’s in tune with each other and able to play off each other.”
Johnson was the centerpiece of Denver’s offseason moves under new front office leadership. Trading Porter for him was a roster shake-up in its own right, but the exchange of salaries also made room for the Nuggets to add another critical role player. Meanwhile, they weren’t sacrificing much from a size and shooting standpoint. Porter is 6-foot-10, Johnson 6-8. Porter was a 39.5% outside shooter last season, Johnson 39% sharp (at slightly higher volume).
The North Carolina grad is a 39.2% career 3-point shooter fresh off his best statistical season in Brooklyn, where he averaged 18.8 points on a lottery team devoid of elite scoring options.
The Nuggets are on a completely different timeline. Denver is a completely different vibe. The lifestyle is slower. The landscape and basketball expectations are steeper. Johnson “relishes” that, in his own words.
“The goal at the beginning, at the end of the day and everything in-between is to win a championship, and that’s what I’m here to do,” he said. “That’s what my teammates, I’m 100% sure, are here to do. So that’s the ultimate goal. Obviously, things happen over the course of the season. You never really know. If everybody only defines successful seasons by the championship, then there would really be a small amount of guys at the end of the season defining their season as successful. So it’s a wide range of things — and I think it starts with how well we can gel, and how the system works.”
Johnson’s new teammates are a good fit for his personality on paper. He’s a known basketball nerd, an X’s and O’s enthusiast with a clear-eyed appreciation for Aaron Gordon’s role in the dunker spot as much as Jokic’s flashy passing. When Johnson was growing up in Pittsburgh, he would draw up sets on “a little notebook” in his bedroom.
“I always loved the game,” he said. “I always loved the mental side of the game. And I’ve always prided myself on that.”
Nuggets coach David Adelman conceptualized Johnson as a focal point of off-ball actions when speaking with The Denver Post last week. Johnson agrees that his catch-and-shoot opportunities are likely to experience “a little bit of an uptick” after he was asked to play on the ball more in Brooklyn. Still, having dabbled in that type of role was another appeal to Denver. The roster had a shortage of shot-creating talent last season, adding to the burden of Jokic and Jamal Murray.
Johnson’s player development specialist with the Nets was Connor Griffin, who used to work for the Nuggets. His head coach, Jordi Fernandez, used to be an assistant under Michael Malone in Denver. “They said it’s a perfect situation for me, and they know my game,” Johnson said Friday.
He’s already well-acquainted with the basketball situation he’s walking into. What he’s eager to familiarize himself with next is the local community. Breakfast in Arizona was a good start.
“There’s a lot for me to learn about the city and a lot for me to learn about the fans of the Nuggets,” Johnson said. “So far, the reception has been incredible. I’m in random places where I wouldn’t expect to find any Nuggets fans, and it’s like, ‘Whoa, go Nuggets! We’re excited!’ And it’s been all over the place, no matter where I’ve been over the past couple of weeks. So that’s really encouraging.”