BOERNE, Texas — Stepping through piles of hay and a maze of tiny goats, Keldon Johnson spots one of the newest additions to his family, a black and white llama.
In December, the 26-year-old said he wanted to buy a llama with his prize money from the San Antonio Spurs’ run to the NBA Cup final. They were much cheaper than expected, so he got two over Easter weekend for his ranch in Texas Hill Country. They arrived just in time for The Athletic to visit.
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He named the llamas Bonnie and Clyde. It’s quickly apparent why. They are constantly stalking everyone, human and animal, but run away the second he comes to say hi.
“I don’t think they’re gonna let me get close enough,” Johnson says with a laugh. “They’re still getting adjusted, so I haven’t really gotten to see their personalities yet. But I think they’ll be a good addition to the farm. I think they’ll fit in just fine.”
Johnson gets chemistry. It’s his greatest skill. It’s why he’s the odds-on favorite to win Sixth Man of the Year. The longest-tenured player on the Spurs roster, he has embraced a reserve role after starting the vast majority of his first four seasons in the NBA. Despite his move to the bench, he has been a key to the team’s jump from the lottery last season to the second-best record in the NBA.
He does so much on the court, averaging 13.1 points and 5.4 rebounds in 23.3 minutes while supplying much-needed toughness and levity. But he may be the most important sixth man in the NBA because of everything he does off it.
When asked how his brother and friends who live with him on the ranch would describe him, he quickly interjects.
“Loud.”
His teammates say the same thing. There have been countless times this season when people will be mid-conversation in the locker room and hear Johnson yelling about something in a manner that is so goofy that the annoyance is overridden by reverence.
He will see second-year guard Steph Castle doing an interview and yell, “Stephanie!” Veteran Kelly Olynyk will be mid-sentence, and suddenly you can hear Johnson yelling, “Doggy!” Olynyk will say “Doggy” right back with a smile.
On a team known for having the biggest player in the game, Victor Wembanyama, Johnson takes up the most space in the room. He’s the reason the Spurs are so full of joy. He is not alone in the shenanigans, but he is unquestionably the epicenter of the culture.
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Heart and soul. That’s what every single person in the Spurs’ locker room calls him. So many of his teammates have told stories about how his unrelenting belief in them was the injection of confidence that helped them break through.
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“They just let me be myself and let my energy carry,” Johnson says. “Once I got comfortable doing that and really just adjusted to that, I feel like it’s just a well-oiled machine every day. I don’t have to do anything different than just be myself.”
Johnson moved to the ranch around the time the Spurs drafted Wembanyama in 2023. It was a transition for Johnson’s career as much as it was for his life. He had the ball in his hands up until that point, the leading scorer on a floundering team, hoping it could find direction.
That direction found Johnson and the Spurs.
It was time for him to find a new role. Johnson has come out on the other side of that journey in the perfect place for him and a team that is already competing for a championship, even beyond its lofty expectations.
Johnson is a bridge from a prior era under Gregg Popovich, tasked with redefining the Spurs Way under new coach Mitch Johnson. He says he tries to carry on the standard Pop built, but puts his spin on things and holds everyone accountable just as much as they return the favor.
It’s the same thing he tries to do, in his own unique way, with his animals on the ranch.
Shortly after his llama runs away, Johnson can finally see why Bonnie won’t come close. She’s actually on the lam (figuratively).
Johnson’s donkey comes limping by, on the prowl for the llama. Johnson isn’t sure how the donkey got injured, but he has a guess. The donkey assuredly got hurt in pursuit of his new fuzzy neighbor, but it’s not gonna stop him from being himself.
“He is dangerous! He’s been chasing everybody. A–hole,” Johnson says. “Now I gotta call the vet to get his leg looked at, cause he want to be an a–hole. He don’t get hurt. He a tank. So he must be really hurt.”
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Johnson named his donkey “Chapo” after infamous drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Though the donkey is one of the smaller animals on the farm — of the several dozen animals, only the mini goats and one baby cow stand closer to the ground — he is the most rambunctious.
Just like Johnson. He says he is “on 10” when he wakes up every day.
“That’s just me,” Johnson says. “Honestly, when I go in yelling and stuff like that, I don’t have to find it. That’s just who I am.”
Johnson lives on the ranch with a crew of family and close friends from back home in Virginia. As they pose for a group photo on the back of a pickup truck, one of them wants it on the record that Johnson promised to buy them all Rolexes if he wins Sixth Man of the Year. One of his friends proudly shows off his cowboy boot Crocs as his boys laugh. Another, Tone Seward, wants it known that he’s single, has no kids and is actually 6-foot-3 (maybe on his tippy toes). At any random moment, Johnson might start wrestling one of them as they fight to put each other in a headlock.
Blissful youth lives in every corner of the ranch. It doesn’t take long to see where Johnson’s personality comes from. His friends and family nurture it. Even the connection to the animals brings him closer to his true self.
Johnson says the animal that represents him best is a white horse named Mu Mu, who lives alongside his other horse, Forrest.
“He’s wild. He’s wide open all the time,” Johnson says. “As people seen today, he was running around, chasing the llama and things like that. I love dealing with him, and he keeps me on my toes.”
Mu Mu has a presence the moment you walk on the ranch. When you first approach the gate, he lightly kicks it to say hi and bows his head to let you pet him. Keep feeding Forrest and him, and they remain happy.
“As you can tell, they don’t miss no meals,” Johnson says. “They fat as s—.”
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Sometimes Mu Mu gets too excited and breaks the fence. Johnson won’t let him hear the end of it. Mu Mu tests his patience but is always worth the hassle. The farm wouldn’t be the farm without Mu Mu, just like the Spurs wouldn’t be the Spurs without Johnson.
“I’ve got to be a lot more serious out here with the animals,” Johnson says. “I get to joking with my teammates, but sometimes I got to be a lot more serious (here) because they get into things they shouldn’t get into and they always up to something. But when I’m not dealing with the animals, it’s like a laugh show out here. All we do is laugh and joke and run around acting crazy.”
Johnson proclaims himself a country boy, hailing from South Hill, a town of 4,709 in rural southern Virginia. He asks why I’m not scared around the animals as a city kid, laughing at how some of the guests get nervous around the endlessly curious horses. I tell him that if you trust them with calm, they trust you back.
A few minutes later, Mu Mu tries to eat my camera again.
The ranch is full of chaos, as is Johnson. But as he sits down to talk on the dock of his pond, his cowboy boots dangling over the water, he takes a breath and looks out at the horizon.
“I feel like it’s just so peaceful out here,” he says. “I get to spend quality time with my family here. I feel like it’s the main thing. Playing in the NBA, things get hectic a little bit. But I feel like I really get to find my peace here.”