There are some players that we as fans rarely talk about. Simply because they aren’t the star of the team and they don’t accrue crazy stats.
But when you’re in the locker room, those players that we don’t talk about could be the leader in the locker room. They could be an All-Star teammate, how would we know that? All that matters is that the teammates like that guy. Which just so happens to be the case when it came to Amir Johnson, who used to be in Toronto but is now in Boston. And the team he left sorely miss his personality in the locker room.
“Man… It’s very different,” Lowry said with a solemn shake of his head. “We understand it’s a business and he made the decision and our organization made a decision. But we definitely miss him, personally as a friend, but as a teammate also.”
“He brought everything together, man,” said DeRozan. “People don’t realize how great of a dude Amir is. He’s one of them guys where you could be having the worst day of your life, but if he calls you or he comes over, he’s going to brighten your day up.”
“He was doing the most craziest things and that’s his personality,” said DeRozan. “I think people gravitated towards that outside of basketball, and they loved him.”
And all the while, Johnson never stopped smiling.
“You will never see Amir upset or mad,” said DeRozan. “The six years I played with him, I’ve probably seen him mad twice; that’s just the kind of person he is.”
Damn Amir sounds like a great guy there. Boston are very lucky to have him.
Morale is very important to a locker room, if you have that guy that’ll always try to perk you up, it helps in the long run. Sure he wasn’t their best player, but he gets the job done and was always switched to ‘Happy’.
