{"id":7885,"date":"2017-05-08T13:39:06","date_gmt":"2017-05-08T17:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/?p=7885"},"modified":"2017-05-08T13:39:06","modified_gmt":"2017-05-08T17:39:06","slug":"joe-johnson-the-ageless-dinosaur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/2017\/05\/08\/joe-johnson-the-ageless-dinosaur\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Johnson: The Ageless Dinosaur"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_7872\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7872\" style=\"width: 238px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/files\/2017\/05\/joe-johnson-2.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-7872\" src=\"http:\/\/eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/files\/2017\/05\/joe-johnson-2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"238\" height=\"233\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7872\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Joe Johnson continues to use his clutch gene with the Utah Jazz. PHOTO\/ Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Joe Johnson will forever have his place in NBA history as the clutchest player of all-time and perhaps the player with the most nicknames. According to <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/johnsjo02.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Basketball Reference<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, his nicknames consist of \u201cIso Joe,\u201d \u201cJoe Cool,\u201d \u201cBig Shot Joe,\u201d and \u201cArmadillo Cowboy\u201d (really, where did that last one come from? And they\u2019re missing one, but I\u2019ll go into that later). <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That\u2019s why in 2017, when the 6-foot-7 wing is still able to carry the Utah Jazz to victory in the playoffs with late buckets, many people seem to forget that he\u2019s 35 years old. Johnson has been in the league for 15 years, but the level at which he plays seems to have remained unchanged &#8212; particularly his success rate at knocking down last-second shots to secure his team a win.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><div class=\"ose-youtube ose-uid-e280d5eaf4faff6a368f2384c8ad886d ose-embedpress-responsive\" style=\"width:600px; height:550px; max-height:550px; max-width:100%; display:inline-block;\" data-embed-type=\"Youtube\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" title=\"Tissot Buzzer Beater: Joe Johnson Wins Game 1 for the Jazz! | April 15, 2017\" width=\"600\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hS5ud0DyvE4?feature=oembed&color=red&rel=0&controls=1&start=&end=&fs=0&iv_load_policy=0&autoplay=0&mute=0&modestbranding=0&cc_load_policy=1&playsinline=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; encrypted-media;accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;gyroscope;picture-in-picture clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Does anyone even remember his first game-winner? (I couldn\u2019t, until I looked up his highlights). He\u2019s had far too many &#8212; to be precise, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=N4xdbRMuq2w\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">eight since 2007, which is a record<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in that timeframe. His very first one, unsurprisingly, took place during his tenure with the Atlanta Hawks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Johnson was the heart and soul of the Hawks, before rad neon uniforms took his place. He was their lord and savior &#8212; someone Atlanta could always turn to, someone who never stepped away from the limelight, whether the Hawks needed a hero or just someone to carry the load in scoring. Surprisingly, only two of his eight game-winners were from his time with Atlanta, though in his prime, he posted the best numbers of his career with the Hawks. 20.9 points, 4.2 rebounds and 5.2 assists per game are nothing to glance over, and Johnson has not hit anywhere close to those statistics since then.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The biggest mark that will stain Johnson\u2019s place in NBA history is the luxurious contract he signed with the Hawks in July 2010. Johnson\u2019s reliability as a scorer and four All-Star selections at the time certainly justified his six-year, $123.7 million deal, but in hindsight, he never led the Hawks past the second round of the playoffs. Two years after signing the colossal deal, the Hawks traded him to the \u201cwin-now\u201d Brooklyn Nets &#8212; another deal that drew a lot of criticism, since Brooklyn gave up five players to acquire a star who was approaching the end of his prime.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Johnson may not have produced at the same caliber in Brooklyn as he did in Atlanta, though his clutchness grew to an all-time high. Five of Johnson\u2019s eight career game-winners came during his stint with the Nets, and his freakishly bold intuition late in games earned him the nickname \u201cJoe Jesus\u201d (the missing nickname!) by then-teammate Kevin Garnett.<\/p>\n<p>A decade had passed from the time Johnson had joined the Hawks to the time he left Brooklyn. Now, add one and a half years to that, and we\u2019ve hit 2017, when the 35-year-old is still able to put on the moves for the Jazz.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So if it\u2019s one thing Johnson\u2019s hefty contract will never take away from him, it\u2019s his killer instinct on the court. When you need a guardian angel, just call \u201cJoe Jesus.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIso Joe\u201d will continue to strike until 3017.&nbsp;And that won&#8217;t even shock anyone.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joe Johnson will forever have his place in NBA history as the clutchest player of all-time and perhaps the player with the most nicknames. According to Basketball Reference, his nicknames consist of \u201cIso Joe,\u201d \u201cJoe Cool,\u201d \u201cBig Shot Joe,\u201d and \u201cArmadillo Cowboy\u201d (really, where did that last one come from? And they\u2019re missing one, but&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":703,"featured_media":7902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[205,243,347,1131,1497,2338],"class_list":["post-7885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-basketball","tag-brooklyn-nets","tag-joe-johnson","tag-nba","tag-utah-jazz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/703"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}