Johnson grew up in South Hill, Virginia, a rural area with a population of about 5,000 near the North Carolina border. His father drove 18-wheelers, which meant early mornings and long days. As a young boy, Keldon sometimes rode with him. His father taught him to fish and hunt, also a rite of passage in that part of the world.
“If you go to Virginia and see a sign that says ‘Country,’ and then you take a right to go deep in the country — that’s where they’re from,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said.
But Keldon grew to 6-foot-5, 200-plus pounds and was one of the top basketball prospects in the country for his age. He played at Oak Hill Academy, the famed Virginia prep school that produced Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant, and then played one year at the University of Kentucky, where his freshman class included future pros Tyler Herro and Emmanuel Quickley.
The Spurs drafted Johnson in the first round in 2019 as the organization went through a seismic shift. The Tim Duncan-Tony Parker-Manu Ginobili dynasty ended, and San Antonio traded its last Finals MVP, the previous year’s Kawhi Leonard, to the Toronto Raptors. The Spurs selected Johnson with the option they received in that deal.
During Johnson’s freshman year, San Antonio had its first losing season in nearly two decades. The next five years: five more losing campaigns. Johnson started a lot of games. One year, he led the team in scoring as the Spurs racked up a staggering 60 losses.
Early in Keldon’s career, his developmental coach was Mitch Johnson, who was an assistant under Gregg Popovich at the time. Keldon always had a knack for hitting an intimidating, open jump shot on his way to the basket.
“(But) we talked a lot about winning and being a defender,” Mitch Johnson recounted early conversations with Keldon. “When we get to where we want to go, what should it be like? For you and us.”
They worked together “validating a lot of details,” such as the team’s defense, Mitch Johnson said, the type of skills that make Keldon a well-rounded player.
Meanwhile, all those losses put the Spurs in a position to draft more young talent. In consecutive years, he used top-four picks in Vembanyama, Stephen Castle and Dylan Harper — the first two of whom won the NBA’s Rookie of the Year award. The Spurs dealt for veteran guard De’Aaron Fox at last year’s trade deadline.
The influx of talent naturally pushed Johnson to the bench, a role change he embraced. He is no longer the leading scorer, but his presence is still felt.
Before the Spurs take the court, Johnson typically plays music from a giant speaker, emblazoned with a worn Spurs logo. Something to get his teammates going. He’s been the unofficial team DJ since his freshman year, when veteran guard Patti Mills “put me on the aux and asked me to play Mariah Carey,” he said.
Johnson’s playlist includes a lot of rap, but this season’s rotation also includes Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” and Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles.”
“I feel like it started as a joke,” Johnson said. “But everyone sang together and had fun with it, so it became our routine.”
When Johnson reviews games, he plays like he just drank an energy drink. He crashes for the rebound. He makes people bodies for protection. They bring a level of … urgency.
“He is is Energy,” Spurs forward Julian Champagne said. “There are times when we’re in games and we’re down and we don’t have energy or we can’t find it — and he does. He seems to drag everyone along with him.
On the season, Johnson averaged 12.9 points and 5.5 rebounds and shot 38.2% from 3-point range. Vembanyama calls Johnson “one of the most selfless guys I know” and Mitch Johnson says Keldon “should be Sixth Man of the Year.”
Keldon Johnson is a contender for the award. He said it’s nice to be mentioned in those conversations, but “Winning is the most important thing to me. … I come off the bench, bring that spark, be myself. Impact the game in any way possible.”
Johnson found out he might be off the court in San Antonio.
He often goes fishing with friends in South Texas. Once, they went to Rockport in the Gulf and ended up catching a pretty big shark. “It’s not a monster,” Johnson said. “But I was like sheesh. It took us maybe an hour and a half to bring it up.”
He goes hunting when he can, particularly wild-game hunting with a rifle or compound bow. They chased many kinds of deer: axis, whitetail, fallow and barasinga, colloquially known as swamp deer. But big game: water buffalo, bison, elk.
As a true outdoorsman, Johnson eats what he kills. He “had eight or nine deep freezers in my garage, filled with wild game,” meat from animals he hunted, which his chef would prepare for him and his family.
