Dennis Johnson

Dennis Wayne Johnson (September 18, 1954 – February 22, 2007), nicknamed "DJ", was an American professional basketball player for the National Basketball Association's (NBA) Seattle SuperSonics, Phoenix Suns, and Boston Celtics.

He was a coach of the Los Angeles Clippers and an alumnus of Dominguez High School, Los Angeles Harbor College and Pepperdine University.

A prototypical late bloomer, Johnson overcame early struggles and had a successful NBA playing career.

Drafted 29th overall in 1976 by the Seattle SuperSonics, Johnson began his professional career as a shooting guard.

After that year, Johnson made himself eligible for the 1976 NBA draft, but was skeptical that any team would take him.

NBA teams were wary of drafting a player with character issues, and Johnson was known to be a troublemaker.

The Seattle SuperSonics took Johnson in the second round of the 1976 draft with the 29th pick and gave him a four-year contract; he earned a salary of $45,000 in the first year and $90,000 in the last.

In his rookie year, the 1976–77 NBA season, Johnson, playing backup to the experienced Sonics backcourt tandem of Slick Watts and Fred Brown, averaged 9.2 points and 1.5 assists per game.

The Sonics finished with a 40–42 record and missed the 1977 NBA Playoffs, leading head coach Bill Russell to resign.

In the following season, the team lost 17 of the first 22 games under Russell's replacement Bob Hopkins, who was replaced by Hall of Fame coach Lenny Wilkens, who gave Johnson a starting spot and paired him with Gus Williams.

Johnson revelled in this new role, improving his averages to 12.7 points and 2.8 assists per game.

During this period Johnson played shooting guard and was known for his aggressive slam dunking, in contrast to the more cerebral roles he played later in his career.

It was at this time that Johnson's nickname "DJ" was coined by play-by-play announcer Bob Blackburn, to help distinguish him from teammates, John Johnson and Vinnie Johnson (whom Blackburn referred to as "JJ" and "VJ", respectively).

Finishing strongly, the Sonics ended the regular season with a 47–35 record and made the 1978 NBA Playoffs.

After eliminating the Los Angeles Lakers, the defending champion Portland Trail Blazers, and the Denver Nuggets, they almost defeated the Washington Bullets by taking a 3–2 lead in the 1978 NBA Finals.

In a 93–92 Game 3 victory, Johnson blocked seven shots—the most blocks in NBA Finals history for a guard.

The Sonics lost in seven games, however, partly because of Johnson's Game 7 scoring drought, in which the second-year guard missed all of his 14 field goal attempts.

Johnson later acknowledged that he simply "choked"; he vowed never to repeat this again and credited this game as an important lesson to become a better player.

Johnson and the Sonics got their revenge in the 1978–79 season.

He eventually led the Sonics to their only NBA championship in 1979 winning the Finals MVP Award.

After three seasons with the Phoenix Suns, he became the starting point guard for the Boston Celtics, with whom he won two more championships.

Johnson was voted into five All-Star Teams, one All-NBA First and one Second Team, and nine consecutive All-Defensive First and Second Teams.

Apart from his reputation as a defensive stopper, Johnson was known as a clutch player who made several decisive plays in NBA playoffs history.

The Celtics retired Johnson's No. 3 jersey which hangs from the rafters of the TD Garden, the home arena of the team.

After clinching the Pacific Division with a 52–30 record, the team met the Bullets again in the 1979 NBA Finals.

After losing Game 1, the Sonics won the next four games to take the finals series, helped by Johnson who averaged almost 23 points along with six rebounds and assists per game.

He scored 32 points in a Game 4 overtime victory, and was named NBA Finals MVP.

It was during this season that Johnson established himself as one of the best guards in the league; he averaged 15.9 points and 3.5 assists per game, and made his first All-Defensive First Team and All-Star Game appearance.

During the following season, Johnson averaged 19.0 points and 4.1 assists, appeared in his second All-Star Game and was named to the All-Defensive First Team and All-NBA Second Team.

The Sonics, however, lost in the Western Conference Finals to the Lakers, who had Hall of Famers Jamaal Wilkes, Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Because of the abundance of talent on the Sonics team, Johnson later called this loss one of the worst disappointments of his professional career.

The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame officially inducted Johnson to the Hall posthumously in 2010.

He is considered by several sports journalists to be one of the most underrated players of all time.

Dennis Wayne Johnson was born the eighth of sixteen children, to a social worker and a bricklayer who lived in Compton, California, a suburb of Los Angeles.

Originally a baseball fan and a Little Leaguer, Johnson learned basketball from his father, but seemed to have neither the size nor the talent to compete with his peers: as a teenager at Dominguez High School, Johnson measured just 5'9" and played only "a minute or two each game". After high school, he worked several odd jobs, including a $2.75-per-hour job as a forklift driver, and played with his brothers in summer league games after work. During this period, Johnson grew to a height of 6'3", and developed what some later described as "rocket launcher legs", which enabled him to jump high to grab rebounds against taller opponents.

Jim White, the coach at Los Angeles Harbor College had watched Johnson play street basketball and felt that Johnson excelled in defense, White asked him to enroll.

Johnson gave up his jobs and developed into a promising young guard, averaging 18.3 points and 12.0 rebounds per game and leading Harbor to a college junior state title.

However, the young guard lacked discipline, often clashed with White and was thrown off the team three times in two years.

At the end of his junior college career, two universities offered Johnson scholarships: Azusa Pacific University and Pepperdine University.

Johnson chose the latter, and in his only year there, he averaged 15.7 points, 5.8 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game, and developed a reputation for tough defense.