Stanley Johnson’s shoulder injury still lingers

Stanley Johnson has been benched for the Pistons’ last two games, including Friday’s playoff clincher at home against the Washington Wizards.

Stanley Johnson has had an up-and-down season for the Detroit Pistons so far this year after being the team’s eighth overall pick in this past draft, showing flashes of greatness but also the kind of inconsistency one might expect from a 19-year old rookie. Most rookies struggle adjusting to the NBA from the college level, and 19-year olds are almost never an exception to that rule.

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Johnson has averaged a meager 8.1 points in 23 minutes per game so far this season, and his numbers have taken a big hit since suffering a sprained shoulder in a February 22nd win against the Cleveland Cavaliers. He missed seven games as a result, not returning until March 11th against the Charlotte Hornets, and since then he’s averaging just 4.6 points and 20 minutes per game while shooting 28.8 percent from the floor and 25.8 percent from three-point range.

Things appear to have come to a head thanks to this dip in performance, as head coach Stan Van Gundy has DNP-CDed Johnson the last two games, both of which were wins against the Orlando Magic and Washington Wizards. After being the Pistons’ sixth man for most of the season to this point, he’s now completely out of the rotation.

Johnson is frustrated at being taken out of the lineup, temporary though the adjustment may almost certainly be. Before the Pistons took on the Wizards on Friday night, he spoke with MLive’s David Mayo.

"“I feel like I’m a good player,” Johnson said before tonight’s game. “A couple bad games. But for me to get discouraged would be like selling myself short. I mean, I’ve played so many games in my career. I mean, I’ve played three bad games and the guy (head coach Stan Van Gundy) DNPs me. Am I going to kill myself over it? No. You know what I’m saying? The biggest thing right now is I’m on a team that’s one win away from being in the playoffs. I can say I contributed to that all year whether I play another second for the Pistons this year, for our team, I know I can contribute in different ways like I’ve contributed all year.”"

It appears from these comments that Johnson attributes his benching to performance based on his three previous bad games (shooting 2-for-18 from the floor), but he goes on to perhaps answer the question to his own concerns.

"“Yeah, I mean, it’s sore, especially on back-to-backs, it’s hard to play sometimes,” Johnson said. “But like I said before though, when I got injured, as soon as you get back on the court no one’s going to feel sorry you because your shoulder’s hurt. It’s sort of if you’re hurt, you should sit out. The more you work the muscle and work the ligaments and stuff like that, whether you’re shooting the jump shot, or drilling or passing — which is every possession — you’re working that ligament out,” he said. “And no matter how much icing you do, the only thing that can help a ligament is rest. At this point in the season, obviously you want to help your team as much as possible. So I’m just playing.”"

In Johnson’s own words, if he’s too sore and hurt to go, which he almost certainly is, he should take advantage of some extra time to heal up. Rest is the key to his recovery, and fortunately the Pistons have the weekend off and don’t play again until Tuesday against the Miami Heat at the Palace of Auburn Hills.

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While Van Gundy hasn’t publicly addressed the benching, all appearances indicate that this is all about Johnson’s recovery. If he can’t play well due to the shoulder, and not playing will help the shoulder recover, the only logical solution is to keep him out of action.

Hopefully this period of additional rest will have him fresh and ready to go for the playoffs next weekend.