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DENVER — Every day, without fail, Cam Johnson’s phone rings with a call from his father, Gil. Sometimes, Cam is occupied and doesn’t answer. He could be working on his outside shot. He could be watching film with his new Denver Nuggets teammates. Or he could be seeking some peace and quiet.
Doesn’t matter. The phone keeps buzzing.
“If you don’t answer his call, he doesn’t give up,” Cam says. “Sometimes he will call seven times in a row.”
Says Gil: “There’s not a day we don’t talk. And we talk several times a day.”
These days, there is a lot to talk about.
Johnson, the Nuggets’ new starting forward, says he is uneasy and unsettled. He has a new team, a new role and a heaping set of expectations to help Denver return to championship contention. In June, Denver traded sharpshooter Michael Porter Jr. and a first-round pick to Brooklyn to get the 29-year-old Johnson. The Nuggets believe Johnson’s elite shooting, combined with his ballhandling and court savvy, will elevate their offense to new heights.
But as the regular season approaches, those heights seem distant to Johnson. He is not so much worried about his pedestrian preseason statistics (8.2 points, 30.4 percent 3-point shooting) as much as he is about his “feel” with his new teammates. He doesn’t quite know where they like to receive passes, how he should navigate certain plays or how to accentuate a group that already flows so well.
“When you go to a new spot, you almost feel like you are restarting, and there can be frustration in that,” Johnson said. “Just getting to know people, getting to know a city, getting to know how organizations operate. I feel like I’m at my best when I find my groove, and I’m in my comfort.”
He’s not there yet, but he knows inside each of the calls from his father, there is a lesson and a comfort from a familiar source: his grandmother.
Helen Johnson was Cam’s grandmother and Gil’s mother. Among the family, she was called Mama Helen. Last August, Mama Helen died at age 85. Both Cam and Gil say it was the last time they have cried.
“It was really hard, but I think the toughest part was seeing how it affected my dad,” Cam said. “He was frozen, and he’s not the type to really get frozen much.”
She shaped Gil, the second youngest of six children whom she raised alone in Conway, S.C. She instilled lessons in determination, piety and humility. As a youth, Gil worked multiple jobs — just like his mom — and went on to play basketball for Pitt before becoming a successful businessman who raised four sons with his wife, Amy.
“My mother had a lot of wisdom that I have passed down to my children,” Gil said.
As they talk daily on the phone, both Gil and Cam recognize that, intentionally or not, sprinkled throughout their conversations are the tenets of Mama Helen: Honor God. Work hard. Be humble.
And with each conversation, Gil says he can sense his son is getting better acclimated to life in Denver. At some point, be it during his youth or during these daily phone calls, Cam has adopted her biggest trait: resilience.
During Cam’s youth, Sunday at the Johnson home in Moon Township, Pa., meant mandatory attendance at the family dinner table.
“Non-negotiable,” Cam said. “Even to this day, if there are enough people in town, it’s non-negotiable: Sunday dinner.”
Over the years, nothing was discussed more at the table than resilience.
“That was a topic at a lot of Sunday dinners, and that came from my mother,” Gil said. “Because I saw how resilient she was in raising us. So I would tell my boys: No matter what life deals you, no matter how many times you fail, go back at that task with the same, if not more, resilience.”
In the Nuggets locker room, Johnson was reminded of the Sunday sermons about resilience at the dinner table. He nodded his head as if he remembered an old friend.
“He loved going to that one,” Cam said. “Any time you had a bad game, bad day, bad this or that, or if you were in the dumps … resilience.”
Gil said the repetition was intentional, a homage to his mother.
“Mama Helen was a resilient woman,” Gil said. “What she wanted to do, she accomplished. You tell her no, she would say, ‘I’ll show you that I can.’ And I think that was passed down through me, and from me through my children.”
So he drilled the concept of never giving up into his four sons.
“I would tell them if I could give them any gift in the world, it wouldn’t be $100 million, it wouldn’t be 100,000 acres. It would be the gift of resilience,” Gil said. “And we still talk about that.”
Cam said he thinks of Mama Helen before every game. Since high school, Johnson goes through the same pregame ritual: As the national anthem plays, he recites Psalm 23 in his head.
He does it because his dad did it, and his dad did it because Mama Helen told him to. Gil says he calls it his prayer for battle.
“That’s something Mama Helen passed down,” Cam said. “Psalm 23 is basically saying don’t have fear in your circumstance and to understand you are covered in grace.”
The reciting of the scripture also flashes him back to visions of Mama Helen from his youth.
“Every time you would talk to her, she’d give you this stern look,” Cam said, a smile overtaking his face and his index finger rising. “And then she would say, ‘You better be keeping God first.’ She was a nurturer, but not soft by any means; she definitely had this no-nonsense way about her, especially with ‘You have to keep God first.’”
She was strict — she insisted on no tattoos or long hair — and she peppered her grandsons with questions about their future. Since he was a youth, he told her he wanted to be a professional basketball player. She would caution that not everyone could make the NBA. What if that didn’t work out?
Johnson never gave her an alternative.
In June 2019, Johnson was selected 11th overall by Minnesota (he was traded to Phoenix that night). Mama Helen was with Cam when he was selected. He hugged her and spoke into her ear: “I told you I was going to be a pro basketball player.”
During the Nuggets’ penultimate preseason game, against Chicago on Oct. 14, Johnson tried to execute a pick-and-roll with center Nikola Jokić. Johnson thought the All-Star center would cut toward the basket, but he stayed in place. When Johnson made a behind-the-back pass, it trickled in space and resulted in a turnover.
The next possession, during a free throw, Johnson went to half court and spoke with Jokić, eventually nodding his head and slapping hands. He said he told Jokić he will learn where he likes to receive the ball and when he rolls and when he stays. The play was an encapsulation of the paralysis by analysis that Johnson has battled during his acclimation to the Nuggets.
“There were a couple times tonight where I got stuck in between,” Johnson said, referring to his decision-making process. “Those are bad. When you get indecisive out there, nothing good comes of it.”
The Nuggets are far from worried.
Coach David Adelman said Johnson has “been exactly what we thought we got,” while raving about his basketball IQ. Adelman said Johnson’s high-level ball handling will allow the Nuggets to have more triple handoffs and side pick-and-rolls on the weak side, a threat they haven’t had since Will Barton and Gary Harris.
“He adds a whole new dimension to our offense,” Adelman said.
But Adelman said nobody could come in and just blend seamlessly into a core with Jokić, Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon, which has been together for the past five seasons.
“Offensively, those three are a masterclass,” Adelman said. “It’s not like you just come in and it all just flows and fits. It’s a lot of read-and-react situations with maybe the best read-and-react center that ever lived. All of it takes a second, and that’s why the preseason is a good thing.”
It may seem like a nit-picky snag in a preseason, but for Johnson, it prevents him from playing free and easy, when he isn’t thinking, he’s just flowing.
“So with the challenges that come in a new situation, I’m trying to find that groove as efficiently and as best I can,” he said.
In other words, Johnson still feels like a clog in what was a fine-tuned machine. He recalled a recent practice where Murray, Gordon, Jokić and Christian Braun were a beautiful blend of cutting, passing and anticipating, while he awkwardly tried to fit in.
“These guys have such a high IQ out there, almost too much,” Johnson said. “It’s like I almost need more communication so that I know what we are doing. You can tell they have played together, and I’m like looking around … but I know it will come around.”
His teammates say there is no reason for Johnson to fret.
“I think he’s doing a great job, man,” Gordon said. “He’s not forcing it. Cam is such a great player that all he has to do is be himself, and it will all work out. I mean, he’s a really, really smart guy.”
Added Murray: “He’s fitting right in. You want to play with guys like him, because he is well-rounded — he can dribble, shoot, space and he has good IQ, and he plays hard defense.”
Adelman played Johnson in all five preseason games and gave him the second-most minutes on the team (Peyton Watson played 104 minutes, Johnson 103) in an effort to get Johnson more reps with his teammates.
“There is a fine balance between him just fitting in, which he is trying to do right now, and then him also just being himself, and knowing that the guys will be OK with that,” Adelman said. “You know, it’s that way with Aaron and Jamal. They’ll play our way — cut, move and screen — but they will also get into their bag and go one-on-one, and that’s OK because they’re really talented players. I think Cam will get there once he has more experience with these guys.”
In the meantime, Johnson is trying to keep his mind right, fighting off the demons of negativity or doubt. When asked what his greatest struggle was at the moment, he was quick to answer.
“Just trying to control my own thoughts and emotions and expectations,” Johnson said. “Just managing that so I have the best chance at succeeding on the court. The other half of that is — everything is new around you.”
The Nuggets spent much of the preseason on the road, so Johnson’s apartment in Denver is only partially settled. He is a self-proclaimed homebody, and his living space is important to him. He has two of his three biggest requirements checked off: He has crafted a reading corner, where his mind can escape basketball (he is currently reading a book on quantum mechanics) and situated another room with equipment to do yoga and other recovery exercises.
“Right now, I’m missing my dog (Halo, a mini Aussiedoodle). She’s one of the main little pieces, because anywhere she’s at feels like home automatically,” Johnson said. “She’s in Arizona (his offseason home) right now while I settle.”
He uses his home to escape from what he admits can be an all-consuming life of basketball. He says he has an “overactive mind” that can weigh on him. So as he continues the tedious task of unpacking boxes and putting things in place, he sees the correlation to his work. Much like each box that is unpacked makes him feel more at home, each practice, each game, each day with Nuggets, he gets him closer to feeling like the Cam Johnson who last season averaged 18.8 points and shot 39 percent from 3-point range.
“In my mind, I tell myself, ‘Be light … don’t let things get heavy on you.’ Because a lot of times I feel like when it comes to performance and it comes to this business and this league … like, it gets heavy,” Johnson said. “And for me, that slows you. You stop answering your phone as much. You withdraw a lot more. So, yeah, I’m lucky to play this game that I’ve always love, but I’m trying to keep in perspective that we are playing a game.”
He is rich in perspective, crediting his years of being around Mama Helen. She repeated adages that have become family sayings. Two in particular are repeated often around the Johnson household. The meanings are rooted in not wanting more than you need.
Cam completes them before they can be repeated to him.
“Enough is enough …”
“… but too much is good for nothing,” Cam says quickly and with the Southern accent of Mama Helen.
“New broom …”
“… Sweeps well?” he says, after pausing to think.
“She looooooved to sit down and give you wisdom,” Cam said.
Now, just more than a year later, Johnson remembers her wisdom as he navigates a new life in Denver.
“She was big on, ‘Rely on your faith, and everything will work out,’” Johnson said. “I was lucky to have her for as long as I did. You know, those are the people who shape you.”
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Jason Quick is a senior writer for The Athletic. Based in Portland, he writes about personalties and trends of the NBA, with a focus on human connections. He has been named Oregon sportswriter of the year four times and has won awards from APSE, SPJ, and Pro Basketball Writers Association. Follow Jason on Twitter @jwquick