Every year around this time, the San Antonio Spurs hit the road for a few weeks while their arena hosts a rodeo. It is a tradition unique to them. For most players, that means time away from their families, not sleeping in their own beds.
For forward Keldon Johnson, it means having his friends watch his ranch. Johnson owns a 22-acre ranch outside San Antonio, in Texas' Hill Country, where he raises all sorts of animals: goats, chickens, cows, a few horses and a miniature donkey.
In late February, when the team was out east, Johnson received a photo: One of his cows had given birth.
"They're my pets — I just love 'em," Johnson told NBC News. "It was a pretty cute moment."
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The Spurs have been the surprise of the NBA season. After six straight losing years, they have surged to second place in the Western Conference and are legit title contenders, led by Victor Wembanyama, the 7-foot-4 French phenom, and a young core around him.
But the Spurs call Johnson "the heart and soul of the team." He is their sixth man, the first one off the bench. He's also the team DJ, their longest-tenured player and their resident cowboy — the rare player who wears actual spurs.
Johnson grew up in South Hill, Virginia, a rural area with a population of about 5,000, near the North Carolina border. His father drove 18-wheelers, which meant early mornings and long days. As a young boy, Keldon would sometimes ride with him. His father taught him to fish and hunt, too, a rite of passage in that part of the world.
"If you go to Virginia and see the sign that says 'country' and then you take a right to go deeper in the country — that's where he's from," Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said.
But Keldon grew to be 6-feet-5, 200-plus pounds and one of the country's top basketball prospects for his age. He played at Oak Hill Academy, the famed Virginia prep school that produced Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant, and then a year at the University of Kentucky, where his freshmen class included future pros Tyler Herro and Immanuel Quickley.
The Spurs drafted Johnson in the first round in 2019, when the organization was going through a seismic shift. The Tim Duncan-Tony Parker-Manu Ginobili dynasty had ended, and San Antonio had traded Kawhi Leonard, its last Finals MVP, to the Toronto Raptors the year prior. The Spurs selected Johnson with the pick they received in that deal.
During Johnson's rookie year, San Antonio had its first losing season in about two decades. The next five years: five more losing campaigns. Johnson started a lot of those games. One year, he led the team in scoring as the Spurs compiled a staggering 60 losses.
Early in Keldon's career, his development coach happened to be Mitch Johnson, who was an assistant under Gregg Popovich at the time. Keldon always had a knack for bullying his way to the basket, for hitting an open jump shot.
"[But] something we talked a lot about was impacting winning and being a defender," Mitch Johnson said, describing his early conversations with Keldon. "When we get to where we want to go, what does this need to look like? For you and for us."
They worked together on "just valuing a lot of the details," Mitch Johnson said, details such as team defense, the type of skills that would make Keldon a well-rounded player.
Meanwhile, all of that losing put the Spurs in position to draft more young talent. In consecutive years, they used top-four picks on Wembanyama, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper — the first two of whom would win the NBA's Rookie of the Year award. The Spurs also dealt for veteran guard De'Aaron Fox at last year's trade deadline.
The influx of talent naturally pushed Johnson to the bench, a role shift that he has embraced. He's not the leading scorer anymore, but his presence is still felt.
Before the Spurs take the court, Johnson typically plays music from a giant speaker, adorned with a worn-out Spurs logo. Something to get his teammates going. He has been the unofficial team DJ since his rookie year, he said, when veteran guard Patty Mills "put me on the aux and told me to play Mariah Carey."
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Johnson's playlist features lots of rap, but the rotation this season has also included Miley Cyrus' "Party in the U.S.A." and Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles."
"I feel like it started off like a joke," Johnson said. "But everybody sung along and had fun with it, so it just kind of been our routine since then."
When Johnson checks into games, he plays as if he just had chugged an energy drink. He crashes for rebounds. He bodies people on defense. He brings a level of ... urgency.
"Heisthe energy," said Spurs forward Julian Champagnie. "There's been times when we're in games and we're down and we don't have no energy or we can't find it — and he does. He seems to just pull everyone along with him."
On the season, Johnson is averaging 12.9 points and 5.5 rebounds and shooting 38.2% from 3-point range. Wembanyama calls Johnson "one of the most selfless persons I know," and Mitch Johnson says Keldon "should be Sixth Man of the Year."
Keldon Johnson is a contender for the award. He said it's nice to be mentioned in those conversations, but "winning is the most important thing for me. ... I come off the bench, bring that spark, be myself. Affect the game in as many ways as possible."
Johnson found he can be himself off the court in San Antonio, too.
He often goes fishing with friends in South Texas. Once, he went to Rockport, on the Gulf, and ended up catching a pretty big shark. "It wasn't gigantic," Johnson said. "But I was like sheesh. It took us probably an hour and a half to bring in."
He also goes hunting when he can, specifically wild-game hunting with a rifle or a compound bow. He has trailed lots of types of deer: axis, whitetail, fallow and barasingha, colloquially known as a swamp deer. But also bigger game: water buffalo, bison, elk.
As a true outdoorsman, Johnson eats what he kills. He said he had "eight or nine deep freezers in my garage, full of wild game," meats from animals he hunted, that his chef will prepare for him and his family.
A few years into his career, after having signed an $80 million contract, Johnson bought the ranch and started collecting a variety of farm animals. He takes care of them himself, with help from family and friends. Now he often arrives at games wearing cowboy hats and boots, a contrast from his teammates' designer clothes.
"Ever since I got a ranch, it's the everyday attire," Johnson said. "It's a lifestyle."
Earlier this season, the ranch became a national talking point. The Spurs had reached the knockout round of the NBA Cup, the league's new in-season tournament, which rewards each player on the winning team with a payout of more than $500,000.
An Amazon NBA Prime sideline reporter asked Johnson, off-camera, what he'd do with his prize money — and whether he'd buy a llama for his ranch. He said yes, and she reported it on a telecast. "I initially wasn't thinking about getting a llama," Johnson told NBC News. "Then I was like, 'Doesn't sound like a bad idea. Why not?'"
The Spurs lost the NBA Cup final to the Knicks, but nevertheless, Johnson said, he has two llamas on the way. He pointed out that "we haven't really had time to get them settled."
That's understandable. The Spurs were away for much of February for their annual "Rodeo Road Trip," as San Antonians flocked to Frost Bank Center in their own cowboy regalia.
Johnson couldn't wait to get home to check on the newborn calf, get home to his ranch. He has been building a pond there, too, so he can catch catfish without leaving his house.
"That's my happy place," Johnson said. "I'm a country boy. I love what I love, I can't help it."
Every year around this time, the San Antonio Spurs hit the road for a few weeks while their arena hosts a rodeo. It is a ...
