After moving on from Deron Williams by buying him out last week, the Brooklyn Nets are moving on to a new era of their franchise. Williams' tenure in Brooklyn didn't exactly go as planned, and the Nets are now trying to go with a younger and more athletic team moving forward. Joe Johnson, who was rumored to be traded all offseason, seems like he will be in Brooklyn to start the year, and there is talk of him possibly coming off the bench this season, according to ESPN.com.
If Johnson were to come off the bench, the starting lineup would be something like Jarrett Jack, Bojan Bogdanovic, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Thaddeus Young, and Brook Lopez. That is a very young starting lineup in general, with much more athleticism then the Nets have had in years. The idea behind bringing Johnson off the bench is two-fold. The first reason is to limit his minutes. Johnson has been in the league for quite a long time, and having been a starter for the vast majority of his career, he has logged close to 40,000 minutes. By bringing him off the bench, the Nets would limit his minutes at age 34 and keep him fresher for later in the season.
The second reason for why bringing Johnson off the bench isn't a bad plan is because he is someone the Nets can run their offense through. Johnson is the type of player that works best with the ball in his hands. If he were to start, he would most likely not have the ball in his hands as much. Lopez is the Nets' best option on offense and their clear go-to-guy, as he is entering his prime and Johnson is on the back end of his career.
Johnson coming off the bench would make him the go-to-guy of the second unit and would separate (for the most part) the two guys on the team that need the ball to be effective. Even though it was a down year by his standards, Johnson had himself a pretty good year last season, averaging 14.4 points and 4.8 rebounds per game while shooting 44 percent from the field and 36 percent from three. Those shooting percentages are right in line with his career numbers, so Johnson has still proven he can get it done at the NBA level.
The talk of Johnson potentially coming off the bench is just speculative at this point, as it was brought up by Nets play-by-play announcer Ian Eagle, not one of the coaches. However, delving deeper into the potential idea of Johnson coming off the bench shows that it might not be a bad plan. It would seemingly work out well for the Nets and will likely keep Johnson healthier than he has been in recent years, so it is certainly something the Nets should consider if they haven't already.
