Keldon Johnson (USA Basketball Photo)
Kentucky has a lot of proven stars in the NBA now like Anthony Davis, Devin Booker, DeAaron Fox, Julius Randle, and Bam Adebayo. There are also well-known rising stars like Tyler Herro, Immanuel Quickley, and Tyrese Maxey. But one name we all tend to forget about and shouldn’t is Keldon Johnson, who has found a niche with the San Antonio Spurs the last two years and now is emerging on the national scene after being added to the USA Olympic Team roster on Friday. He’ll join Adebayo and Booker on the team playing in Japan later this month.
Johnson had been practicing with Team USA on the select team but was promoted to the Olympic squad along with JaVale McGee to replace Bradley Beal and Kevin Love.
Booker, Adebayo, and Johnson will be trying to win gold like Tayshaun Prince (2008), Anthony Davis (2012) and DeMarcus Cousins (2016) have in the last three Olympics. Eleven UK players have won Olympic gold medals, but two UK players have not won gold on the same Olympic team since the Fabulous Five of Cliff Barker, Ralph Beard, Alex Groza, Wallace Jones, and Kenny Rollins in 1948.
Johnson played in two of Team USA’s exhibition’s games — USA lost two of three games — and had seven points on 3-for-5 shooting in 13 minutes against Australia. He averaged 5.5 points and 2.5 rebounds in the two games.
However, head coach Gregg Popovich — Johnson’s coach at San Antonio — understood his versatility and value. Team USA doesn’t need scoring or offense. It needs a player who can play defense, rebound and play in the system. Johnson has shown he can do all that the last two years with the Spurs.
“Keldon has played well during our training camp and in the exhibition games in Las Vegas, and being a member of the San Antonio Spurs he is familiar with the things coach Popovich wants this team to do, Jerry Colangelo, USA Basketball Men’s National Team managing director, said.
Johnson averaged 12.8 points and six rebounds per game last year when he started 67 of 69 games after beginning to emerge at the end of his rookie season. He became the first Spur with at least 20 points and at least 20 rebounds in the same game since Tim Duncan in 2013.
Johnson came to UK with high expectations and was the 2019 SEC Freshman of the Year when the Cats reached the Elite Eight. He thought he might go in the first 15 picks in the draft but dropped to the Spurs at 29th in the first round.
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The American men will open Olympic preliminary round play on July 25, against France (8 a.m. EST), then will play Iran on July 28 (12:40 a.m. EST) and will close out preliminary play on July 31 (8 a.m. EST) versus Czech Republic.
