How can Stanley Johnson impress during Summer League?

The Pistons were initially against Stanley Johnson participating in Summer League, however they’ve backflipped and Johnson now finds himself leading a team of rookies and fringe NBA players.

Stanley Johnson didn’t have a breakout rookie season, but he still performed solidly and impressed fans in patches.

He also found himself in the national spotlight during the playoffs when he and LeBron James bumped each other on the court, which lead to some snide remarks from both players in press conferences, with Johnson saying he was inside LeBron’s head.

These comments put Stanley under intense scrutiny from fans and media alike, and showed the world that despite being only 19, he is not going to backdown against anyone.

This attitude is what is most important for Stanley to display during the Orlando Summer League kicking off this weekend.

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He is by far the most accomplished of any of the players on the Pistons Summer League roster and will be one of the biggest names participating for any of the teams in Orlando, so the expectation will be for Stanley to step up his play.

With the recent news of Darrun Hilliard being forced to sit out because of a back injury, the Pistons will look towards Stanley to be the sole leader of the team. The positive is that everything points to him having a mature head on his shoulders despite his age (he only turned 20 in later May).

It’s almost a given that Stanley will step up and be the leader of this team, however the more pressing question is what does he need to show while on the court?

One of the most intriguing areas of his game to watch will be his shooting.

Stanley showed he could finish at the rim consistently in his rookie season, averaging almost 60% on shot attempts inside the paint, but outside of the paint he was far less consistent.

He shot 36% from 10-16 feet from the basket, but aside from that his shot wasn’t reliable, with his three-point percentage barely scraping over 30.

Surprisingly, Stanley was actually a knockdown shooter in the playoffs when playing against much tougher competition.

He shot 60% on 10 attempts against the Cavaliers and shot 43% from 3-10 feet and 67% from 16 feet and beyond.

The nature of Summer League will see Stanley with the ball in his hands far more often than during the season, so it will be very interesting to see if the playoffs were a sign of things to come and he’s able to torch far worse defenders, or if the four game series against Cleveland was an anomalous stretch.

Turnovers were also a problem during Stanley’s rookie season, so there will be a keen eye on his ball handling in Orlando, which will be amplified by the likelihood of him having far more touches than he usually would.

He was committing 1.6 turnovers in his 23.1 minutes per game last season, and was turning the ball over 2.4 times per 36 minutes.

If the goal is for Stanley to one day become a starter for the Pistons, turnovers are an area he’ll need to address, as is the foul problem he had during his rookie season.

He averaged 2.4 fouls per game, and when expanded to per 36 minutes he was committing 3.8 fouls.

Turnover and foul trouble are rookie problems as old as time, but it’s important he shows he is taking strides to improve his control of the ball and play smarter defence.

Again, the playoffs showed a glimpse of this with his turnovers dropping to 0.8 per game, while he remained steady with 2.5 fouls per game, a remarkable feat considering he spent a significant amount of time guarding LeBron.

There seems to be a bit of a theme here, with Stanley improving in almost every aspect of his game during the postseason.

It will be very interesting to see if the strong finish to the season and the work he has done so far this offseason leads him to a dominate performance in Orlando.