Brooklyn Nets: Cam Johnson Breaks Down What It’s Like to Play for a Rebuilding Team

The Nets wing was candid in his appearance on ‘The Young Man and The Three’ podcast.

Nov 27, 2024; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; Brooklyn Nets forward Cameron Johnson (2) looks on against the Phoenix Suns during the second half at Footprint Center. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images / Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images

Brooklyn Nets wing Cam Johnson was on the latest episode of ‘The Young Man and The Three’ podcast with Tommy Alter and Sue Bird, and he shared what it is like to play for a rebuilding team.

The 28-year-old was incredibly transparent about the hardships that can come with embarking on a rebuild, as is currently the case in Brooklyn. You won’t hear many NBA players get as candid as Johnson did. 

It’s worth listening to the conversation, as well as the episode, but it’s more fair to recap it through a transcript than through a summary:

TOMMY ALTER: You've had an amazing season. I think All-Star season. Who knows what's going to happen with the team?

CAM JOHNSON: Thank you Tommy, I appreciate that. 

TA: Who knows what's going to happen with the team? But like, there's just a lot of noise. Dennis just got traded. There's a lot of noise. People have all kinds of, you know, “Cam's gonna be here, Cam's gonna be here…” There's nothing you can do about that, but … people just putting you in other cities and you're like, “Yo, I'm the one who has to move.” 

CJ: Yeah, so we talked about this the other day. It's just like,for basketball fans, the trade deadline and trading in general is fun, right? It's fun. It's like, “Oh where's my player going? Are we going to get this player? Are we going to get that player? Where's this player going to go?” It's like reality television in real time. From the players' perspective, you realize that like, oh man, lives are at stake. Dennis, you know, he has his own life and he has to pack that up with him and take it from coast to coast. He’s from Germany, it takes him a really, really far way away from home as opposed to Brooklyn, which was a little closer. So there's a lot of elements at play anytime anybody gets moved. 

There's a lot that I could say on this topic. There is a ton and, being in the middle of that, I don't know how much I'd say on it right now. But if I could just speak generally and taking myself out of the situation, the thing that pushes a lot of success in team sports from my limited experience is buy-in and pride in what you're doing. And so the best way to achieve success on a team level is when that buy-in and that pride is at all-time highs. When it's peaking. Because that's when the camaraderie, that's when everything starts to flow. The synergy. And you're able to play your best ball as a team. 

There's a lot that gets in the way of it on a professional level and one of those things can be uncertainty of your future, whether it's yourself getting traded, whether it's your teammates getting traded, anything like that. And just those little shreds of doubt can be very difficult for teams to overcome because, like you know, the margin for error is always really small. Always really small. It's a little bit of a lack of communication. A little bit of a lack of trust. And just a tiny bit of disinterested, you know, feelings from any one player out of five. And how good players are at the professional level, you're going to get exposed. 

So a lot of elements at play any time this comes up. And if you're on a team where you know trade speculation is high, you maybe could potentially assume that that comes with it. Now, that’s not to make excuses about anything, but it's it's human nature. It's reality.

SUE BIRD: … Correct me if I'm wrong, but is it safe to say that now that the deadline's approaching and Dennis just got traded, the Brooklyn Nets are even more into a rebuild essentially. 

CJ: Yeah, it’s fair to say that. 

SB: So I thought we were going the rebuild route of like, the difficulties of that. 

CJ: I think they’re one in the same. 

TA: The reality is, objectively, I’ll say … they've been great. They have a great coach. Everyone has like, played their ass off, but there's a vested interest probably for this team to have a worse record this year so they can get a guy.

CJ: And to further clarify, and by “we've been great,” I think it means our team energy. Like maybe our record could be better, but our team energy and direction was definitely headed in a positive manner.

SB: Yeah, I agree with that watching outside looking in. I would totally agree with that. 

So the WNBA is just the the the salary structure is just not set up for massive trades to happen mid-season. It's just not. It's a hard cap. You have to fit pieces of a puzzle into it. It's very difficult to make the money match mid-season. That could change, though. Our CBA is up, it's being negotiated, yada, yada. That could change with the influx with the media money, so I don't know what that would be like. I've really never had to deal with it, to be honest, but not because of any other reason than it's just not set up that way. 

But the rebuild stuff, I've been a part of a rebuild and one of the harder parts of that is you're trying — and I think you've already really said it — you're trying to just have a team that is bought in to what this is, which is like, the building of the culture, right? The building of what you think you're going to be in two, three, four, five years. That can be hard, but as long as you have that and you're—  I feel like when you have that, you're entertaining. The fans can get behind you, but there's always going to come a point where you have to like, take the Ls literally. And when they start to stack up, it can feel really weird and it can, in the locker room, you can start feel people be like, “Well… like, I'm getting judged on this.” And you’re putting the team first, and that's where things can get real murky in a rebuild year.

CJ: And to further, you know, add my take onto that is: one thing that we're all conscientious of is that our product on the court — like, a rebuild for example — that's maybe the team retooling in some way, it could be a death sentence to somebody's career. So there’s maybe a ninth [or] tenth man on a rebuilding team that never sees another minute in the NBA. It happens all the time. Like, those are guys that get cut out of the league. 

So from a player's perspective, we never want to lay down and lose. It is like, on one hand losing always sucks. We hate it. We’d much win. Like, it sucks. But on the other hand, it's your livelihood on the line. Like your job is on the line, so it is not in any player's best interest to just sit there and lose. So it is like you said. It's hard to come to terms with if you feel like, you know, you're in a situation where winning is not the priority or whatever it maybe… It’s just like, we inherently want to compete at high level and it can bother you deeply when you’re not.

TA: I don't think I've ever asked you about this. This has nothing to do with you guys this year or the Nets overall. Really more like the process and more like, as a player perspective. Because it gets like, litigated over and over again. And I feel like this has become a thing with fans, for better or worse. JJ [Redick] and I talked about it before because he got there right when it was sort of ending. but there's like, some teams… it's like, they lose four games in a row and people are like, “We want to lose for three years straight.” Not even even just like, “Okay, we're going to rebuild for a year.” Like, “We want to like, fully bottom out.” But what's really interesting about what you're saying is [that] the culture is built by having those eighth and and ninth and tenth guys. It's not just the stars and that comes from— you take a guy like Josh [Hart], is a great example of this.

Josh is a superstar in New York because of how he plays. Josh is not going to be happy on a losing team. 

CJ: He’s been on teams thatw eren't the best and you can tell like, he didn't… Yeah.

SB: His value is in the winning because he makes winning plays. Not—  I hate to say it like this, but not he's not just going to go out there and drop 30. 

CJ: Yeah, he's not empty. He's not empty. He does a lot of winning-type things. 

SB: And that needs to be valued on a winning team, or that will be valued on a winning team. 

TA: Do you think that — I mean, Embiid would joke about it a little bit — but do you think that there's any understanding of it from the player perspective or is it really just more like, we just got to get guys in here that know how to win? And you can do both at the same time, but just having a having a sense of like, culture versus long-term prognosis when you're actually in it.

CJ: I'm not sure I'm getting what you're saying so.

TA: Do you think that if you are … actually in the middle of the process and not in the middle of a one-year rebuild — [hypothetically], we’re in the middle of a thing where we don’t want to be good until 2028 — there is a… as much as you may hate it, there is an understanding of it? Or there’s like, a “This is stupid?” Because who knows if you’re even going to hit your picks?

CJ: I think most players would say the latter because it just seems so circumstantial, almost whimsical. 

SB: Hard to sign up for that. 

CJ: Hard to sign up for that. 

SB: By the way, that's like, if we use your example… that's like, three [or] four seasons and depending on a player's age, you’re giving away your best winning years. Age plays a role in that. Like, I'm not trying to give, I don't know, my 25th year to 28-29.

CJ: I guess the answer lies in the middle. You want to put your team in the best position to win but you want to do it immediately. As a player, you want to compete now.  I don't want to say we're going to be like, we're going to be pretty good in about two-three years.

TA: What I was going to say is a perfect example of this to me is Jrue Holiday, who Philly trades to start the process. They're literally like, is a guy—

CJ: All-star.

TA: Goes to New Orleans. Very undervalued, great career. And then he just becomes the champion. He's the guy that goes to Milwaukee, they win a championship. They put him on Team USA, they send him to Boston [and] he wins. Don’t you think you would want to have  a guy like Jrue Holiday?To me, this stuff is habitual like any other job and there's no logic in being like, we're going to trade the Jrues, we're going to trade Joshes, we're going to trade the people who… 

CJ: That will will make another team go. 

TA: Because  there's no guarantee you'll get that back.

CJ: That’s how I feel. I feel that way and I feel like … those are quality pieces. Like, you hit the nail on the head with Jrue. He goes from being undervalued. He was a one time All-Star going into championship- type teams, but he becomes undervalued until he becomes the ultimate utility player that's like you got this guy on your team…

SB: The one you can't win without.

CJ: Yeah, exactly, and it's just… It's something that it's hard to understand. Like, it's hard to understand. I guess timelines play a big role in it. Timelines… and it's hard. It's hard to understand

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