Help is on its way as the burden of expectation continues to weigh heavily on Keldon Johnson

The Spurs' sturdy swingman has shouldered a level of responsibility that's beyond his pay grade this season, but both he and the Spurs hope it will have all been worth it once the cavalry arrives.

Photo courtesy of Bally Sports Southwest

When the Spurs handed Keldon Johnson a four-year, potentially $80 million contract extension last summer, it was as much a down payment for what he was about to endure as it was a commitment to a player who’d shown substantial progress through the first three years of his career. The newest face of the rebuild got paid, and suddenly it was his responsibility to help lead a young group of players that was about to be thrown into the meatgrinder, whether he and his teammates were truly aware of that reality or not.

And this season has undoubtedly worn on Johnson. The high-energy, often-hyperactive 23-year-old has become more subdued by the month as his team has trudged along through the muck. A 16-game losing streak and what feels like a never-ending series of injuries to teammates around him can have that effect. He said Saturday he wakes up smiling every morning because he gets to play basketball for a living, but even dream jobs have their own versions of hell sometimes.

Johnson sat at the podium rubbing his head as he looked at the box score following the Spurs’ 118-102 loss to the Utah Jazz on Saturday. About an hour earlier his team had been outscored 30-14 in the third quarter and given up what had been a 10-point lead at halftime, adding to an already substantial pile of second-half collapses this season.

“We stopped playing for each other and it showed out there, starting with me. I’m accountable, 100 percent. I’ve gotta continue to be a leader, continue to set an example, and I definitely take the blame for that (third quarter). I’ve gotta move the ball and play better,” Johnson said. “I didn’t do what I was supposed to do, I didn’t play with my teammates in the third quarter and it showed.”

The expectations for what Keldon was supposed to do this season may have been different for some than they were for others, but they’ve remained consistent for the Spurs. As Gregg Popovich said Saturday when speaking of the figurative and literal growing pains of his young leader, “We’re not looking for heroes, we’re looking for people who will develop.” And despite the shiny new contract and promotion, we’re reminded more often than not Johnson is still very much a work in progress.

The fine line he’s had to walk between shouldering the appropriate level of burden and simply doing too much has been a difficult one to find at times, which is one of the downsides for a late first-round pick being given this mantle at such an early developmental stage. Do too little and you’re not living up to your contract; do too much and the weaknesses of your game become more exposed. For Johnson, it’s been the latter that’s caused some pockets of unrest within the public’s perception — however fair or unfair — and as his usage rate has gone up, so has the scrutiny.

There have been obvious and critical improvements to his game — he’s become a more willing passer and an increasingly more efficient finisher at the rim — but his shortcomings have been put on display as well. Despite his development as a dependable scorer out of the pick-and-roll and in dribble-handoff situations, Johnson has struggled in the role of lead offensive initiator. He runs into problems when defenders load up and anticipate the right-handed drive, and once he gets stuck in a crowd he’s rarely shown the creative playmaking flashes necessary to make defenses consistently pay for helping.

And while he’s developed a flurry of go-to moves in the short mid-range to counter rim protectors or guards and wings who cut off his driving lanes, Johnson still gets caught in his own tunnel vision. It often becomes ‘to the basket or bust’ once he puts his head down, and the lack of long mid-range shooting in his arsenal — he’s only taken 19 pull-up 2-pointers this season, per Second Spectrum tracking data — allows defenders to comfortably sell out and guard the rim when he’s got the ball in his hands. There’s a limit to the dimensions of his game right now, and that has become more glaring in San Antonio’s perpetual state of shorthandedness.

But the Johnson we’ve watched this season is not the player we’re likely to see in the years to come. There’s a different prism through which he should be viewed, and it’s not the one reserved for top options on championship-caliber teams. That isn’t who he is, and it’d be a stretch to project it’s who he’ll ever be.

We know who and what Keldon is at this juncture. He’s a rhythm player who thrives as a beneficiary when the defense is off-kilter and on its heels — when he can run out in transition, spot up and attack closeouts on the weak side, take advantage of scrambling defenders by cutting without the ball, flow into secondary actions and exploit mismatches in the mid-post area. The Spurs have installed a number of offensive packages this season designed to either find him on the move going downhill or matched up against guards on the block, but there’s been a finite number of times they’ve been able to reach into that bag before halfcourt defenses have loaded up and cut off his air space. When Johnson doesn’t have to repeatedly act as the straw that stirs the drink, however, he becomes a much more dangerous player.

But until the Spurs get some bodies back in the fold and a new influx of talent during the offseasons ahead, it’s unlikely we’re going to see that fully realized version of Keldon anytime soon. The state of the roster is what it is — a mix of rookies and young players likely to be in San Antonio for years to come, and a group of vets whose futures with the team are totally up in the air — and it needs Johnson to occupy a role that’s above his $80 million pay grade, as crazy as that is to say out loud.

And yet, at least some help appears to be right around the corner, as does a reminder of what the Spurs have been missing in the absence of Devin Vassell.

San Antonio’s third-year swingman has been ramping up his workouts with the team in recent weeks, as he’s been on the comeback path from an arthroscopic procedure on his left knee in early January. Popovich mentioned last week there’s a chance Vassell’s return to the court will coincide with the Spurs’ return from the Rodeo Road Trip, which would provide a real boost for a team in desperate need of one.

The growth Vassell had shown as a scorer and playmaker prior to undergoing surgery feels like a distant memory at this point, but it had arguably been the team’s most promising development this season. He’d become a true three-level scorer, adding to his repertoire a physical, attacking style to pair with his already crafty mid-range game and 40-percent shooting from the 3-point line. But perhaps most importantly, he had shown real signs as a burgeoning facilitator, particularly in his drive-and-kick game.

Vassell’s 2.31 assist-to-turnover ratio ranks third on the team behind point guards Tre Jones and Devonte’ Graham (six-game sample size), and his assist percentage in the month prior to surgery had surged to 18.8 percent, second only to Jones during that span. And where Johnson has struggled to consistently find teammates on the perimeter when defenses have collapsed on his drives, Vassell had been excelling.

In the 29 games he’s played this season, the former No. 11 overall pick has set up 83 potential assists for spot-up scorers out of the pick-and-roll, generating 1.229 points per possession (.32 points per shot above expectation) in the process, per Synergy data. By comparison, Johnson has afforded the same opportunities to spot-up players just 95 times in the 53 games he’s played, and the Spurs have scored .884 points per possession (.15 points per shot below expectation) when he’s distributing out of the pick-and-roll. Vassell’s ability to leverage his scoring gravity to create chances for others has been sorely missed by an offense that all too often goes stagnant, and his healthy return to the floor would go a long way in providing Johnson a bit of a respite from the burden he’s been carrying.

As has been the case with damn near every bit of analysis surrounding the Spurs this season, perspective is important. This team is currently a shell of not only its current self, but of what it will be in the years to come. At a certain point, Johnson’s role will change, and as the rebuild continues it’s unlikely he’s going to continue to contribute by shooting, creating, passing or turning the ball over on nearly 40 percent of his team’s individual offensive possessions (his workload this season, per BBall Index ($)). That’s a lot to ask of a guy with his specific skill set and level of experience.

And Johnson has been the first to admit his game is a work in progress. Conversations about the next steps to take in development can be had ahead of the extra gym time the summer months provide — the addition of a pull-up game, both from 3 and in the mid-range, is going to be a big one — but for now, he knows he must rediscover some semblance of consistency in his currently wayward 3-point shot, and he understands his propensity to force the issue at times can be detrimental to what the Spurs are trying to accomplish offensively. Even considering the bevy of injuries San Antonio continues to endure, he knows he has to trust the system and everyone else around him.

“There are things we’ve gotta do better, and until we do (those things) we’ll continue to lose. Like I said before, it starts with me. I’ve gotta lead and be better,” Johnson said. “I’m gonna keep working toward that, and I know my teammates will. They do an amazing job of continuing to get better, and I gotta do that same.”

The last 16 games have been ugly, and as the race to the bottom continues to stink heat up, it’s difficult to say the Spurs will find any normalcy the rest of the way. That’s just the reality right now. But things will eventually get easier for Johnson in a number of ways. Life as a rebuilding team’s No. 1 option should provide him with a level of experience he may not have gotten otherwise, and so long as he takes what he’s learned and further adapts his game, the $17.5 million he’s scheduled to make in each of the final two years of his upcoming extension will be chump change even as he slides down the usage-rate hierarchy.

In the mean time, he’ll not only have to absorb the gut punches until the rest of the cavalry arrives, but he’ll have to treat them as educational. Because sometimes, the best learning experiences in life are the painful ones.

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