By Sam Perley, hornets.com
Few players have come through the Charlotte Hornets organization and left a bigger impact from both a basketball and cultural standpoint than the legendary Larry Johnson. Taken with the first overall pick in the 1991 NBA Draft more than 25 years ago, Johnson’s tenacious scoring and rebounding abilities were invaluable to the Hornets in their early years, but his influence off the court was just as important in transforming Charlotte into a big-time basketball city.
A 1987 McDonald’s High School All-American, Johnson spent two years at Odessa College in Texas – where he became the first and still the only player ever to win NJCAA Division 1 Player of the Year honors in both seasons that he played – before transferring to UNLV to play under future Hall-of-Fame Head Coach Jerry Tarkanian. Johnson helped lead the Runnin’ Rebels to back-to-back Final Four appearances and the school’s only NCAA Championship in 1990. He was a First Team All-American and Big West Player of the Year in both his seasons at UNLV, adding the Wooden Award and Naismith College Player of the Year honors as a senior in 1990-91.
Despite owning the fifth-worst record in the league the year before, the Charlotte Hornets won the 1991 NBA Draft Lottery, giving them the first pick and the opportunity to add Johnson to a promising roster that already included Muggsy Bogues, Dell Curry and Kendall Gill.
Essentially a full-time starter from the beginning of his NBA career, Johnson’s 6-7, 250-pound frame immediately brought an explosive element of toughness and physicality to a relatively young Hornets team.
“The number of double-doubles he rolled up in his career was significant [for someone his size]. He was one of those guys who’d have 10 rebounds before halftime, easily,” said longtime Hornets broadcaster Steve Martin. “He was a perfect teammate. He would tailor his game to
[his teammates] and still come out with the same numbers.”
“He was amazing for his size. He was a beast [and] a tough guy [who] did so many things well,” Curry added. “He was one of my all-time favorite teammates.”
With averages of 19.2 points and 11.0 rebounds his first season in the league, Johnson became the first of two Charlotte players ever to be named NBA Rookie of the Year. His 899 total rebounds and 323 offensive rebounds during the 1991-92 campaign both still stand as Charlotte single-season records.
Johnson only got better his sophomore season, having a career year with 22.1 points and 10.5 rebounds in 82 games started. He was selected to and started the NBA All-Star Game and also earned 1992-93 All-NBA Second Team honors, all of which were firsts for a Charlotte Hornets player. Johnson was also instrumental in helping the team make and win its first-ever playoff series in 1993.
As Johnson became one of the NBA’s brightest young talents on the court, he was also quickly developing into one of the league’s most recognizable stars off of it. Known commonly as “LJ” at the time, Johnson was also widely connected to his “Grandmama” persona stemming from a series of Converse shoe commercials in which he dressed as an older woman playing basketball. He made television appearances and even played himself in the movies Eddie and Space Jam, the latter of which remains a cult classic among NBA fans.
“Grandmama took the country by storm,” Martin recalled. “He jumped in all four feet and made it what it was. He bought into what Converse wanted to do and it exceeded beyond anybody’s imagination.”
“One night, we flew into Cleveland. We got there at 11 p.m., got off the plane and got to the hotel. It’s 2 a.m. and there’s a crowd of at least 40 or 50 people lined up outside the hotel in a snowstorm [waiting] to get an autograph from Larry,” Martin added. “I got up the next morning at 8 a.m., went down to the restaurant to eat and those people were still there.”
The Hornets organization was still young at the time, but Johnson became a transcendent superstar who helped catapult the lesser-known city of Charlotte onto the national stage.
Johnson’s third NBA season was interrupted by a 31-game absence because of a back sprain although he still finished with averages of 16.4 points and 8.8 rebounds. After the 1993-94 season, he helped the U.S. Men’s National Team win the gold medal at the 1994 FIBA World Championships. Despite nagging back problems, Johnson averaged 19.7 points and 7.8 rebounds over the next two seasons, missing just two regular season games during this stretch and making his second-career All-Star appearance in 1995.
Prior to the start of the 1996-97 season, Johnson was traded to the New York Knicks in a deal that brought Anthony Mason back to Charlotte. Thanks largely to a continually-improving perimeter game, Johnson was able to prolong his career another five seasons and helped the Knicks reach the NBA Finals in 1999. Two years later at age 32, Johnson was forced to retire because of chronic back problems after 10 NBA seasons.
“If he hadn’t hurt his back, he could have been one of the greatest,” said Hornets Associate Head Coach Patrick Ewing, who played four seasons with Johnson in New York. “He could play with the bigs even though he was undersized. He was quick enough to put it on the floor [and] savvy enough that once that athleticism left, that he could still be effective.”
“He could have been one of the best,” echoed Curry. “He kept himself in great shape, so it’s surprising he had the back injuries. He could have definitely been one of the all-time greats had he stayed healthy.”
Johnson remains the Hornets career leader in offensive rebounds (1,186) and 20-point games (192), while ranking second in field goals (2,858), total rebounds (3,479), double-figure rebounding games (158), double-doubles (161) and triple-doubles (5). He also ranks fourth in scoring (7,405) and sixth in assists (1,553).
A widely popular talent in his prime, it’s safe to wonder what might have happened had things worked out differently for Johnson. Maybe a few more All-Star berths and All-NBA teams could have solidified a Hall-of-Fame resume had it not been for his troublesome back problems. While it’s one thing to ponder what could have been, there’s no questioning the immense legacy Larry Johnson did leave behind for the Hornets organization, the city of Charlotte and the NBA itself.