Tyren Johnson

One of the things we liked the most about Tyren Johnson at Portsmouth were his physical attributes. Unfortunately he only measured out at 6-6 ½ without shoes with a 6-8 wingspan, though. While that’s obviously not going to kill his draft stock, it’s not going to help it either.

Jonathan Givony

Coming into this camp with little to no buzz after a solid yet not overwhelmingly impressive season on a bad team in the Sun Belt conference, few prospects helped themselves as much this week as Louisiana Lafayette’s Tyren Johnson.

A combo forward with nice physical attributes, including decent size (around 6-8), a nice frame, long arms and good athleticism, Johnson is a versatile player who does a little bit of everything.

Offensively, he likes to face the basket, where he shows the ability to make shots with range out to the 3-point line, albeit inconsistently. He has the ability to shoot off the dribble as well, but is streaky here as well, not always really knowing his limitations at this point. Just an average ball-handler, Johnson does a good job operating in transition, but is not particularly effective in the half-court, at times showing poor shot-selection and overall decision making, and in turn being extremely turnover prone. He’s not a particularly experienced player, despite his senior status, being somewhat of a late bloomer who only really started producing consistently at the collegiate level in his final season.

Perhaps the place where he impresses the most is with his passing ability, as he not only averaged a very good number of assists this season, but also showed excellent court vision throughout this camp, whipping some very creative passes to teammates diving to the rim. While he might be a raw player, this part of his game hints at some intriguing potential that could very well still be in store for him down the road.

Defensively, Johnson is interesting, as he showed the ability to guard either forward position at this camp, and contributes to his team by coming up with extra possessions in the form of blocks, steals and rebounds. His awareness isn’t always great and he seems to lose his focus from time to time, but there is plenty of potential to work with here thanks to his hustle and excellent physical tools, and his ability to defend multiple positions (especially against the pick and roll) makes him fairly intriguing.

Players like Johnson are very much en vogue these days, as he’s essentially the prototype for what teams look for in a Josh Smith style face the basket power forward. Still raw around the edges and clearly not a finished product, Johnson will probably get some looks from teams in private workouts and will be someone to keep tabs on in Europe or the D-League over the next few years to see how he progresses.

The Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year, Tyren Johnson averaged 17.9 points (50% FG and 36.1% 3FG) 7.9 rebounds, 3.3 assists,1.8 steals, and 1.5 blocks per game for 13-17 Louisiana-Lafayette. He is a reputed gym rat and improved considerably between his junior and senior seasons, while showing greater scoring efficiency.

Still, his performance at Portsmouth came as a surprise. Tyren Johnson is a player we’d like to take a closer look at over the next two games after his extremely impressive debut. The 6-8 combo forward has outstanding physical tools (size, length, athleticism and a great frame) to go along with an intriguing skill-set for his position. He knocked down three 3-pointers, hit an off the dribble jumper, made some outstanding passes, came up with a number of blocks and steals, crashed the glass hard and just showed a lot of toughness and versatility. Players in his mold are very much en vogue in today’s basketball (both in the NBA and Europe) so it will be interesting to see how he follows up this performance.