Make way for the return of Chris Johnson?
Shortly after the trade deadline passed, DH speculated about the Celtics possibly look to re-sign recently waived Portland Center Chris Johnson. A few hours later, ESPN Boston's Chris Forsberg posted a column with some pros and cons on adding CJ.
Johnson spent part of the training camp with the Celtics before the 2010-11 season, then got plucked out of the D-League on a 10-day contract after Boston was thinned up front by the Kendrick Perkins trade at last year's deadline. Johnson appeared in four games for the Green, chipping in six points and five rebounds over 32 minutes of floor time.
Coach Doc Rivers expressed a desire to hold onto him even as his 10-day stint expired, but a need for a backup point guard instead forced the team to sign a bought out Carlos Arroyo. Johnson went on to sign with the Blazers and spent the past calendar year with the team before being released on Thursday.
Would the Celtics be interested in Johnson? There's certainly a value in a 26-year-old with some familiarity of your system, particularly when you're just looking for someone to eat minutes over the next 45 days.
The sexy name out there right now is Chris Kaman (yes I just used sexy in the same sentence with the Caveman), but it's unclear whether he's willing to give up enough millions to convince the league owned Hornets to buy him out. Then even if he is bought out, the Celtics will have to compete with several other teams, most notably the Heat and Spurs.
Johnson hasn't done anything for the Blazers this season besides ride the pine. His season high in points is 4 and his season high in rebounds is 3. Obviously that has a lot to do with all the DNP's and averaging less than 5 minutes in games he does play. My guess is that CJ would just duplicate JaJuan Johnson, and one would hope that JaJuan would know the Celtics system better than CJ by now. But, CJ did look respectable in his 4 games last season for the Celtics, so while he might not be a plan A or plan B, or even a plan C, I could still see him being a plan D or E addition (wanted to go farther in the alphabet, but decided to kill it right there).
What are your thoughts on Chris Johnson?
