A Tre-tise on a Bucket-Getter

Why the NBA Draft Market is Incorrect on Tre Johnson

Tre Johnson is assumed to be the fifth-best prospect in the 2025 NBA Draft.¹ The NBA Draft Market is incorrect on this assumption. Here is why.

The Case for Tre

The case for Tre Johnson is as follows:

• Tre Johnson is an elite shooter and high-volume bucket-getter.

• He has always been an elite shooter and high-volume bucket-getter and was the 5th-ranked player coming out of high school, which should give us more confidence in those abilities.

• 2024-25 Texas had an archaic offensive scheme and poor spacing, rendering Tre’s job of generating offense more difficult. But he was a good enough creator for others that he ended up with a solid AST/TOV ratio and solid impact metrics, at least on the offensive end.²

  • 7.7 cbb ref BPM (6.5 offense, 1.2 defense)

  • 6.6 Torvik BPM (6.0 offense, 0.6 defense)

  • 3.7 Miya BPR (2.8 offense, 1.0 defense)

• He has solid positional size and length,³ so he should not be a target to hunt on defense.

I am really trying to steel-man the case for Tre here and enumerate all of the arguments in his favor, but that is basically it, which speaks to Tre’s relatively “pointy” as opposed to well-rounded skillset.

Tre’s Biggest Strength is Overvalued

As you might have guessed if you follow the NBA draft and read my essay, “Sources of Edge in the NBA Draft Market:”

and/or if you read my analysis of Ace Bailey, where I applied my theses more concretely to another player I believe is currently overrated:

you know I believe that there is currently an NBA draft inefficiency regarding one-dimensional scoring. In short, that skillset is overvalued, and especially if the cost of the player emptying a bag is a corresponding loafing on defense. This happens because the same skillset that is indeed very valuable at lower levels becomes less so as the opportunity cost of using a halfcourt possession increases from high school to college to NBA.

Tre Johnson is a paragon of this archetype, so much so that commenter Jacob Sutton easily guessed my directional thoughts with his comment on “Sources of Edge in the NBA Draft Market:”

This is a banger

And you, my friend, are going to HATE Tre Johnson based on the criteria😂😂😂

But Ace and Tre play different positions and actualize their tough shotmaking via different skillsets so there are key differences to walk through and analyze. And after rigorously documenting my thought process on Ace I ended up tempering my hot take, so it is only fair to apply an equal amount of rigor to Tre.

Elite Shooter?

From Tre’s college stats alone with some flawed assumptions⁴ we get a 90% confidence interval of 34.3% - 45.4% for 3FG% and 34.9% - 42.8% if we include mid-range 2 point jump shots as well.⁵ We also get a 90% confidence interval of 81.4% - 91.5% for FT%. And we can use our “brain models” to factor in additional supporting information:

• Tre launched 11.4 3FGA per 100 possessions in college.

• He had a difficult mid-range shot diet in college and in high school.⁶

• He also converted over 80% from the line in the EYBL⁷ and 16/17 from the line in national team play.⁸

While shooting generally comes with much more uncertainty than we would like to think, Tre has shown enough to be labeled at least a good shooter, and seems to have as good a chance as any freshman other than maybe Kon Knueppel to become an elite shooter at the NBA level.

Major Statistical Red Flags

Per 100 stats:

But Tre has the following glaring red flags:

• He had a terrible rebounding rate in college.

• He had a terrible stock rate in college, and especially so relative to his rate of fouling.

• He did not get to the line often for someone who had the ball in his hands so much of the time.⁹

And the lack of rim pressure is magnified by taking a closer look. From Sam Vecenie’s 2025 NBA Draft Guide, which I believe is referencing halfcourt situations only: “Made just 46.5 percent of his shots at the rim this season, including 45.6 percent of his layups with only two dunks.”¹⁰

And Tre’s atrocious rebounding, stocks, and rim finishing despite solid positional size and length hypothesize some combination of the following, upon which we can dig deeper with film evaluation:

• Tre might be a very low motor player when he does not have the ball in his hands.

• Tre might be “soft” (in the physical sense of the term as opposed to the armchair psychologist sense) and lacking in the combination of strength, quickness, and explosiveness to make physical, winning plays when he does not have the ball in his hands.

• Tre might just lack instincts or basketball IQ for making winning plays when he does not have the ball in his hands.

Defensive Stats and Defensive Film

Looking at the film the majority of draft analysts have substantial concerns about Tre’s defensive impact, and these concerns predate his college season.¹¹ I proposed a method to get the benefit of wisdom of crowds without the harm of groupthink in “Sources of Edge in the NBA Draft Market:”

Another way to go about this is to weight what the draft analyst is saying about a prospect’s skills (which is more often from first principles film evaluation) as opposed to the draft analyst’s ranking of the player (which is more influenced by other rankings).

And the manner of other draft analysts’ concerns with Tre’s defense are substantially consistent with the stats-based hypotheses above. Namely:

• Low motor: He often does not display effort to rebound, even in his area. And he often does not display effort once he is beaten or gets taken out of the play via screens, especially off ball.

• Physically soft: He is lacking in play strength and lateral quickness, causing him to 1) frequently allow his man to drive into the paint and 2) frequently get taken out of the play (and stay out of the play) via screens.

• Lack of instincts and basketball IQ: He often gets caught ball-watching, creating easy looks for the offense.

Based on the crowd consensus on Tre’s defense, it is reasonable to assume his mediocre public defensive impact metrics might actually be overestimates of his ability:¹²

• 1.2 cbb ref DBPM

• 0.6 Torvik DBPM

• 1.0 Miya DBPR

Tre has had some encouraging defensive reps, especially on ball, but the totality of evidence points to a poor on-ball defensive projection and an even worse off-ball defensive projection. And that is extra worrisome because, as I wrote in “Sources of Edge in the NBA Draft Market,” on-ball defense is overrated and off-ball defense is underrated:

Interestingly, this may be trending otherwise with the NBA increasingly becoming a weak-link sport.² But historically, players like Avery Bradley and Klay Thompson, strong on-ball defenders who aren’t as consistent off the ball,²⁹ have consistently shown up in defensive metrics as lagging their well-earned on-ball reputation. On the other hand, players like Robert Covington, weaker on-ball defenders who can rotate intelligently and create havoc with stunts and passing lane disruption³⁰ have been underrated.

An Uncanny Comparison

The most strikingly similar comparison to Tre is fellow SEC bucket-getter Cam Thomas. Zach Lowe mentioned on The Lowe Show that from his limited film evaluation he agrees with the Tre Johnson-Cam Thomas comparison that everyone else has talked about:

And I concur with Zach and the scouts he has talked to based on both stats and film comparisons:

Cam Thomas per 100:

Tre Johnson per 100:

Impact Metrics:¹³

• Cam Thomas: 6.3 cbb ref BPM, 5.3 Torvik BPM, 4.0 Miya BPR

• Tre Johnson: 7.7 cbb ref BPM, 6.6 Torvik BPM, 3.7 Miya BPR

Like all comparisons it is not perfect, as Tre has edges in length,¹⁴ draft day age,¹⁵ high school rank,¹⁶ creation for others, and an apparent edge in shooting.¹⁷ On the other hand, Cam Thomas has edges in quickness and explosiveness, which manifests on the court as a major edge in rim pressure. And despite the 2024-25 SEC being one of the best conferences of all-time,¹⁸ Cam Thomas actually faced a tougher defensive strength of schedule at LSU in 2020-21 than Tre Johnson did at Texas in 2024-25.¹⁹

Cam Thomas is a super polarizing NBA player whose impact metrics have always lagged his scoring ability. This has largely been due to turnstile defense:

But also the Cam Thomas / Tre Johnson archetype is most valuable as an offensive floor raiser on bad teams with few other options to generate offense. Cam Thomas is a good offensive player, but is not the caliber that his top 10 status in scoring per minute would imply:

That being said, he still has a positive path to go on the aging curve and already shows up surprisingly positive in predictive EPM, despite his awful defense:

But the Nets were still 21st in Dunks and Threes predictive offensive rating before Cam missed the majority of the season after 11/25/2024. Obviously the lack of offensive talent on the Nets is largely responsible, but it is also fair to question whether Cam’s average efficiency on high usage would be as positively impactful if he had better teammates and the opportunity cost of using a halfcourt possession was higher. In other words, most player impact metrics in the public domain explicitly or implicitly assume linearity and additivity, which is a useful framework but not really how basketball works.²⁰

Projecting Tre

I think the Cam Thomas comparison is a pretty good anchor for how to project Tre Johnson at the NBA level. Tre has similar defensive effort and ability deficiencies to Cam such that I would project Tre to be nearly as negative as Cam has been on the defensive end of the floor.

The offensive projection is a bit more interesting. There is some chance that Tre can scale down his offensive game and and weaponize his shooting ability in a more efficient way by operating off screens. In other words, instead of shouldering the offensive creation burden he had at Texas with little scheme support, he could act as more of a true shooting guard who can still make the right pass attacking a closeout, albeit one who does not make the most of those situations due to lack of ability at the rim. And there is a chance that if he no longer shoulders the offensive creation burden that his off-ball motor could improve on both ends of the floor.

But there are real questions about his off-ball motor and maybe even his off-ball instincts. He might just lack the desire or the focus to make winning plays when he does not have the ball in his hands.

Ultimately, I think Tre has a good chance of ending up as a slightly more off-ball version of Cam Thomas, with slightly less extreme offensive and defensive impact. The swing factors will likely be 1) just how good of a shooter he ends up being and 2) whether / how much he is able to efficiently scale down his offense and correspondingly give more effort and focus to off-ball play on both ends of the floor. In this draft class that puts him at 19th on my big board, but as things currently stand I have a 12-19 tier of prospects, so perhaps my Tre ranking is not quite as much of a hot take as it might appear at first glance.

A Premortem on Why My Projection is Incorrect

I am currently pricing in that more often than not Tre Johnson ends up as a pretty severely negative defender. But as I alluded to above, there is a chance that he flips an effort switch and instantly becomes a better rebounder and defender, especially as he puts on muscle and improves his play strength. After all, he is only 19.3 as of draft day.

Similarly, if he buys into a role as an elite off-ball shooter instead of thirsting for his iso bag, his offensive impact would be more “portable” in the sense that it would not only raise the floor of bad offenses, but also raise the ceiling of good ones.

Finally, there is the chance that I have more fundamentally misevaluated his basketball IQ by 1) overanalyzing Tre’s offensive game instead of simply following my own advice on the predictive power of simple AST/TOV²¹ and/or 2) not adjusting enough for Texas’ poor offensive scheme and lack of holding players accountable for defense and shot selection. If that is the case he may end up more like a healthy CJ McCollum, a player who has outperformed his athletic deficiencies with basketball IQ and work ethic. But I would bet Tre ends up closer to Cam Thomas than to CJ McCollum.

1. According to the RookieScale.com consensus board as of 6/10/2025.

2. My own model has Tre overall closer to Miya than to cbb ref and Torvik.

3. 6’10.25” wingspan

4. As I stated in previous articles, there is value to the “all models are wrong, but some are useful” approach.

5. 77/204 on mid-range 2 point jump shots, according to Torvik

6. He “tends to rely on making tough shots,” according to his 247 scouting report.

7. Also according to his 247 scouting report.

8. According to his RealGM National game log.

9. 29.1% USG%

10. He was 7/11 on dunks on the season, including non-halfcourt situations, according to Torvik.

11. He “needs to be a more committed defender,” according to his 247 scouting report.

12. My own model has Tre as negative on defense.

13. It is worth noting that my model has Cam Thomas as substantially better college impact than Tre Johnson.

14. Cam Thomas has a 6’6.5” wingspan, according to CraftedNBA.

15. 19.3 to 19.7

16. 5th to 25th

17. But it is important to remember that shooting variance is always higher than we think it is for our desired level of precision.

18. From KenPom’s Thoughts:

Indeed, based on non-conference play, the SEC has been one of the best leagues of the internet era, and therefore, possibly ever. The conference produced the best non-conference winning percentage over that time and the best scoring margin since the 1997 ACC

19. 2024-25 Texas had the 25th-ranked KenPom defensive strength of schedule and 2020-2021 LSU had the 7th-ranked KenPom defensive strength of schedule.

20. Again, all models are wrong, but some are useful.

21. Although, as Sam Vecenie mentioned in his 2025 NBA Draft Guide, Tre “rarely turns the ball over, but a significant number of his shots could be considered something similar.”