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Johnson’s early returns sure to have SVG feeling upbeat about Pistons at small forward

Stan Van Gundy got to Orlando a year ago before Summer League practices unsure he had a reliable option at shooting guard. He left a week later gung-ho on the position after landing his preferred target in free agency, Jodie Meeks, and especially after watching Kentavious Caldwell-Pope blow up in Summer League.

Fast forward 12 months and swap out shooting guard for small forward. Other than that, same story.

The NBA moratorium lifts later this week, at which point the Pistons should have some news about a trade that addresses part of the solution at small forward. And they need multiple answers there because the three players who logged every meaningful minute last season – Kyle Singler, Caron Butler and Tayshaun Prince – have moved on.

But just as Caldwell-Pope seized the day in 2014 Summer League, Stanley Johnson is doing so this time around.

The expectation is still that Johnson will come off the bench as a rookie. But it might be more for reasons of fit than readiness or his place in the pecking order. The projected Pistons second unit for next season will be heavy on scorers – Meeks, Anthony Tolliver and Brandon Jennings, assuming he returns successfully from his Achilles tendon surgery.

To that mix, Johnson’s cocktail of attributes – toughness, defense, energy and playmaking ability – appears to mesh very well.

Van Gundy’s wants shooting on his first unit to put around the Reggie Jackson-Andre Drummond pick and roll. Ersan Ilyasova is the newcomer at power forward and he brings a lot of it. Caldwell-Pope expects to take a leap in year three similar to the one he executed last year, which includes more consistency in his jump shot –and based on how he looked in a workout after a Pistons Summer League practice last week, he’s attacked the off-season with serious intent. That newcomer at small forward also projects as an above-average 3-point shooter and a nice fit with the first unit.

But Johnson’s not going to be a second-unit guy very deep into his career. You hesitate to jump to anything resembling a conclusion after two Summer League games, but – my, oh my – he’s been impressive.

For a kid who turned 19 a month before the draft, there’s an old man’s YMCA quality to Johnson’s game – and that’s high praise, for the uninitiated. His sense of pace is uncanny. He’s got the body of a 30-year-old, which is nice, but even better that he’s smart enough to exploit his strength. He’s leaned into contact to create space for an advanced mid-range game. Once he gets a step on his defender, he uses that wide frame to hold them off as he goes off one foot to the rim.

His ballhandling is better than advertised and – again – he knows how to use it. Van Gundy, in his defense of Reggie Jackson’s spike in turnovers late last season, said the fact Jackson practically was solely responsible for making plays off the dribble colored his turnover stats. It might be too much to expect he’ll shift some of that burden to Johnson as a rookie, but it won’t be too long before Van Gundy is scheming ways to take advantage of the mismatches Johnson can create as a ballhandler.

In the pick and roll, for instance, teams are going to have to make the decision to switch a bigger man on to Johnson and risk a blow-by drive or switch a smaller player on to him and risk getting overpowered. Don’t switch at all? Johnson’s passing has also been a revelation here, impressive for its simplicity more than anything. If he sees a play, he takes it.

“Sometimes, just throw it back, get the defense going one way,” he said. “Maybe one or two times, you might get the roll to the basket for a dunk or something like that.”

Things already often heard about Johnson: quick learner, curious, open to coaching, desirous of honest assessments of what he needs to do better.

Being great is about a lot of things, physical ability a very necessary first ingredient but meaningless without the other layers that allow it to manifest.

Johnson, on first blush, appears to have all of those other ingredients. He talks openly about wanting to be the best player in the game someday. He’s showing the type of fearlessness – accepting of all challenges, wanting the ball in uncomfortable spots – great players share. If he puts in as much work as we hear he’s willing to log, improvement is going to come fast.

And he’s already showing he’s good enough to factor quickly as a rookie. Yup, Stan Van Gundy is going to feel a lot better about small forward headed out of Orlando than he did upon arrival.