This Hawk left the Celtic nest early
On the night of Nov. 14, 2001, a rookie named Joe Johnson went for 22 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists against the Indiana Pacers in a 101-93 Celtics victory. Celtics basketball guru Leo Papile walked past the Boston locker room after the game, muttering, "ROY, ROY." As in, Rookie of the Year.
"I remember that game," a seven-year veteran named Joe Johnson said yesterday. "But I don't remember a lot more of my time here. My playing time here was very short. I really don't have any memories. It's like it didn't happen."
Johnson was a Celtic for 48 games in the 2001-02 season. He started 33 of them. That's not exactly "very short" playing time but, like Chauncey Billups four years earlier, he was a lottery pick who left town before his first year was over and went on to bigger and better things. He finished the 2001-02 season in Phoenix, stayed with the Suns for three more years, then was traded to Atlanta, where he has just completed his third year. He's a two-time All-Star, a possible 2008 Olympian, and he's only 26.
The memory of his time in Boston is framed mainly by what didn't happen. He joined a team hell-bent on making the playoffs, something the Celtics had not done since 1995. (And they backed in that year.) Coach Jim O'Brien had brought in Dick Harter with an eye toward emphasizing defense and toughness. As a rookie, Johnson had little of either.
But he had undeniable talent. That was good enough to get him a starting job for those 33 games. But the pressure to win and the attention to defense eventually forced the coaching staff to turn to Eric Williams. Johnson soon fell out of the rotation and eventually was basically replaced by fellow rookie Kedrick Brown, who did have some defensive skills.
It was a pretty dramatic dropoff. He went from starter against Houston Jan. 18 (0 points in 18 minutes) to DNP-CD the next night against the Pistons. He had a DNP the game after that against Toronto. By the time Indiana came back for a second visit Jan. 23, there was no more ROY talk for Johnson. Brown had supplanted him in the starting lineup. It was a humbling comedown, even though he did participate in the Rookie Challenge over All-Star Weekend in Philadelphia.
"Coach came to me and told me that it was time for them to give Kedrick a chance," Johnson said. "I didn't play [much] again. No one ever gave me an explanation. Then, the next thing I knew, I was traded."
Did he ever think about what might have happened had he stayed?
"No," he said. "Not at all. Like I said, I don't really have any memories here."
The Boston Years won't get much attention when they make "The Joe Johnson Story." By the time February rolled around, the Celtics were well over .500, a rare spot in those times, and figured they needed to make one more move to see if they could do some damage in the Eastern Conference playoffs. As the team headed for its annual Western swing after the All-Star Game, Johnson played 16 minutes over five games. His last night as a Celtic, Feb. 19 in Los Angeles against the Lakers, he was a DNP-CD.
The next day, Johnson was sent to Phoenix along with Randy Brown, Milt Palacio, and a first-round pick. The Suns sent free agent-to-be Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk to Boston. It was a bit of salary dump for the Suns, who weren't going to re-sign Rogers and who wanted to shed Delk's onerous (at the time) contract. They could have had Brown instead of Johnson, but Brown was playing reasonably well at the time, so he stayed. Ironically, once Delk came on board, Brown, too, fell out of the rotation.
It was a Celtics team of strong personalities, led by Antoine Walker and Paul Pierce, and for Johnson, a quiet kid from Little Rock, Ark., it wasn't the easiest of fits. His coach in Atlanta, Mike Woodson, says he has no memory of Johnson's Celtic days, either. He was an assistant in Philadelphia under Larry Brown at the time.
"I know he didn't play much," Woodson said. "The rap on him was that he was well-rounded, a good, all-around player, but not NBA-tested. That's about all I remember."
Now he's been Johnson's only coach in Atlanta since the Hawks acquired him in a sign-and-trade in the summer of 2005. It's hard for those who knew Johnson in his short stay in Boston, where he was quiet, reserved, and deferential (all good qualities for a rookie, by the way), to think of him as the captain and conscience of a playoff team. But he is.
"Sometimes people look at numbers and say, 'He should do this. He should do that,' " Woodson said. "But who is going to turn down a max contract? The question is, can you live up to it and do the best you can do to uphold your end of the deal? Joe has done that.
"He was the third or fourth option in Phoenix. He was the first option here on a young, unproven team. He has stepped in and excelled."
Johnson had an underwhelming Atlanta playoff debut Sunday night. He needed 22 shots to score 19 points. He did have 7 assists (6 more than Mike Bibby) and 5 rebounds in 41 minutes. He'll get another shot tonight against his former team, the one he doesn't seem to remember and would very much like to forget.
Peter May can be reached at pmay@globe.com
