The Brooklyn Nets have four first-round picks to use in the upcoming 2025 NBA Draft and from now until June, they will have to figure out the best players to select. Brooklyn has been giving fans a behind-the-scenes look into what the scouting process has looked like with their SCOUT series and episode two is giving a glimpse into one of the key figures in the scouting process.
“My hope was to always walk on at Villanova because that was the school I really wanted to be at. When it was time for tryouts, they couldn’t find my name, they couldn’t find my paperwork,” Nets assistant general manager BJ Johnson said of his time at Villanova. Johnson tried to walk on at the school, but it seemed like the team didn’t want him until things suddenly changed.
“I remember after our women’s (basketball) practice, I would have to run the stairs in the pavilion. I saw the men’s team coming out to practice and I see them pointing up to us, like, oh, they’re gonna kick me out of practice,” Johnson continued. “They tell me to come downstairs. They invited me to be on the men’s team. At that point, no tryout, nothing. It was just like that.”
Johnson, who played for legendary Villanova head coach Jay Wright, was able to make the Villanova basketball team as a walk-on after being cut from the team after tryouts during his freshman season. Johnson went on to play three seasons at Villanova before graduating with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a minor in Chinese prior to beginning his post-playing basketball career with USA Basketball in 2005.
“I tried out my freshman year, but I got cut. I was really disappointed because I worked so hard and I thought I was going to make it. But it wasn’t the right time for me. Looking back, it really was the best thing that could have happened to me. Because it gave me the chance to meet a lot of people and get involved in a number of different activities,” Johnson said in 2002 in an interview with Villanova’s newspaper.
