SAN FRANCISCO -- Keyontae Johnson called his closest friends Sunday night, something the 23-year-old has been doing a lot more lately. He uses it as a time of reflection, gratitude at its highest height.
The next day he was part of a six-player workout in front of Warriors coaches and personnel scouting for the upcoming 2023 NBA Draft. Johnson might have been the biggest name there on Monday. Many evaluators see that to be true on the court, and there's no argument there regarding Johnson's story as well.
While he's expected to hear his name called 15 days from now in the first or second round of the draft, Johnson 30 months ago wasn't expected to ever play basketball again after collapsing on the court. Nobody could predict what his life would look like following that moment. This being his reality felt like a fever dream.
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Johnson has made it his reality now, and he isn't looking back.
"Yes, every night -- at least the night before I come to a workout," Johnson said Monday at Chase Center. "I just take a little 30-minute break just to myself. Just listen to music and just cherish the moment. I call my homeboys. I have never been on the West Coast.
"So I call a lot of my friends and I tell them, like, 'Yo, I'm really out here,' and he's like, 'Keep going, you're setting the ways, bro.' So when I call my closest friends, they inspire me to keep going, just motivate me and I just sit back and reflect and thank God for the opportunity."
Entering his junior season at Florida, Johnson, once a consensus top-100 high school prospect, was on his way to being a lock for the first round. His freshman season was solid. His sophomore season was a breakout campaign, averaging 14.0 points and 7.1 rebounds per game as a First Team All-SEC standout.
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The 6-foot-5 wing was the 2020 SEC Preseason Player of the Year but forever will be remembered for falling face-first to the floor against Florida State in the fourth game of his junior season. The diagnosis was heart inflammation. Johnson then missed two seasons before transferring to Kansas State and excelling last season for the Wildcats.
Through the first four games of the 2020-21 season before Johnson's medical emergency, he was averaging 16.0 points on 64.1 percent shooting. That's the type of player who returned to the court this past season, propelling Kansas State to the Elite Eight.
Now, Johnson's path has been all about proving to teams he's more than a feel-good story and healthy enough to be the pro many once projected. He also never will run from his story and strives to be a sense of motivation for years to come.
"It's something I always got to deal with" Johnson said. It's one of my stories to tell. The more people ask, the more I get comfortable telling them. I'm never tired of it. It's inspirational to people.
"When people ask me, I want to tell them everything. Just never give up. A lot of people say I'm an inspiration to them."
The NBA Draft Combine was yet another waiting game for Johnson.
Like so many other hopeful draft prospects, Johnson looked to impress teams in Chicago, though in a different way than the rest of his competition. Despite playing 36 games last season, the most of his college career, and averaging 34.1 minutes a night, also a career-best, Johnson wasn't cleared by the NBA's Fitness to Play panel until May 26. The news came down nearly a week after the combine concluded.
It also was made official two days after Johnson's 23rd birthday, knocking down a barrier to clear a clean path to his biggest basketball wish.
"My shoulders dropped," Johnson remembers. "It was a good birthday present for me. I really can't complain. I was really just blessed to finally get cleared and finally go ahead."
Monday's Warriors workout went "really good" from Johnson's perspective. They went through a handful of shooting drills, and there also was a large focus on passing and cutting. Johnson said they also played pickup without a ball to impart the importance of actions without the ball.
Whether it's with the Warriors or working out for other teams, Johnson, who positionally is seen more as a tweener at 6-foot-5 and 230 pounds, is aiming to show his impact as a shooter. In his sophomore season at Florida, he shot 38 percent on 3-point attempts and improved to 40.5 percent in his lone season at Kansas State going 47 of 116 from deep. The sturdy sharpshooter believes he fits in the Warriors' pace-and-space offensive flow and made 45.2 percent of his catch-and-shoot threes in his final college season.
If there's one area of his game Johnson wants to improve on that side of the ball, it's his assist-to-turnover ratio, which was a negative (2.9 turnovers per game and 2.1 assists) last season. He's emphasizing making the extra pass when talking with teams. Defensively, Johnson admits he sees lackadaisical moments as his team's primary scorer and knows that must be better in the eyes of NBA teams.
Who he models his game after, and why, should be an automatic positive to the Warriors and everybody else.
"My favorite player is Kawhi [Leonard], but I've been watching PJ Tucker -- just seeing how he impacts the game defensively," Johnson said. "He can knock down open threes and rebound at a high rate. Just trying to find guys in the playoffs that know how to get on the court and just reading those guys. So PJ Tucker has been a guy I've been watching."
The comeback tour started as a model for motivation and quickly turned to triumph over the rest of Johnson's competition. After a two-year hiatus from games, Johnson was named First Team Big 12 and the Big 12's Newcomer of the Year behind 17.4 points per game and 6.8 rebounds per game. Kansas State danced into March Madness for the first time since 2019 and advanced to the Elite Eight for the first time since 2018 thanks to Johnson's 22-point performance against Michigan State in the Sweet Sixteen.
Before he starred again on the court, though, he starred on the sidelines as "Coach Key."
Mike White, then the head coach of Florida when Johnson was a Gator, wanted to help his star player however he could when he got out of the hospital. All Johnson wanted to do was help his team -- he didn't know any other way. The idea was to assign Johnson as a player-coach until he was allowed to play again, whenever that might be. Keyontae was ready like it was his first day at school all over again.
He came into the coach's office every day around 11 a.m. and broke down film for nearly two hours. Johnson scouted Kentucky and prepared his teammates for tough teams like Tennessee. The basketball junkie still found plenty of ways to get his fix in and believes that now is an advantage for him for the rest of his career.
"I feel like that's definitely a big help," Johnson said. "You play a lot of games in the NBA, so you got to watch film. There's a lot of great opponents you're going against every night. You never have an off-night, so you got to know all about the man you're going against.
"I might end up guarding [Kevin Durant] or [DeMar DeRozan] or something like that. So you just gotta know what to do to maintain them from the extreme."
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When the draft begins in two weeks on June 22, Johnson will be two years older than Moses Moody and more than two years older than Jonathan Kuminga. Both players are entering their third seasons with the Warriors, and Johnson will be a rookie. He lost two years of development, yet gained perspectives of the game and life that nobody else can match.
Maybe he is an option for the Warriors at No. 19 overall. Perhaps he's an option if the Warriors trade back further in the draft, if they trade into the second round, or if he somehow goes undrafted. What he would do the moment he walks into Chase Center is add to a culture that has taken uncanny gut punches.
The Warriors lost a part of their culture when general manager Bob Myers decided to step down. Johnson is what was seen as the Warriors Way for so long. The game will take care of itself, as he already has proven once before.