You know your team is desperate for you to play well when nearly every play you make in a game is rewarded with one or multiple replays of the play in the broadcast. I’ve noticed this trend before, but it’s painfully apparent in this one: basically every time Stanley Johnson scored the ball, we got a replay of it. It’s like the Pistons are trying to tell their apathetic fan base, “Look how good Stanley Johnson is! You can’t risk missing a single game of Pistons basketball with how well he’s playing!”
With Johnson shooting 32% from the field for the entire month of January, including 21% from three, I think I (and everyone else) can afford to miss a few Pistons games. Or all Pistons games. Preferably all. No amount of replays, no matter how gratuitous they are in number, can alter Johnson’s grotesque shooting numbers.
I get the feeling that Pistons fans have given up on Johnson in the same way that I have given up on Thon Maker. Neither has panned out in the way that fans hoped when they were drafted, but have shown defensive flashes (especially in high-profile playoff games) that trick other fanbases into thinking that they’re good players. Maybe a straight-up Maker/Johnson swap could be orchestrated. That way, neither team is at risk of accidentally signing their own bust to a second contract. I don’t think I’d like Johnson very much (he’s a worse Tony Snell), but at least I wouldn’t consider him to be the Bucks’ problem in the same way that Maker is the Bucks’ problem.