{"id":1877187,"date":"2026-04-11T10:00:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T07:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1877187"},"modified":"2026-04-11T10:00:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T07:00:36","slug":"a-day-on-the-ranch-with-keldon-johnson-spurs-heart-and-soul-and-nba-sixth-man-favorite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1877187","title":{"rendered":"A day on the ranch with Keldon Johnson, Spurs\u2019 heart and soul and NBA Sixth Man favorite"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

BOERNE, Texas \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

In December, the 26-year-old said he wanted to buy a llama<\/a> with his prize money from the San Antonio Spurs\u2019 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<\/em> to visit.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

He named the llamas Bonnie and Clyde. It\u2019s quickly apparent why. They are constantly stalking everyone, human and animal, but run away the second he comes to say hi.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019re gonna let me get close enough,\u201d Johnson says with a laugh. \u201cThey\u2019re still getting adjusted, so I haven\u2019t really gotten to see their personalities yet. But I think they\u2019ll be a good addition to the farm. I think they\u2019ll fit in just fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson gets chemistry. It\u2019s his greatest skill. It\u2019s why he\u2019s 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\u2019s jump from the lottery last season to the second-best record in the NBA.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

When asked how his brother and friends who live with him on the ranch would describe him, he quickly interjects.<\/p>\n

\u201cLoud.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Keldon<\/p>\n
\n
\n Keldon Johnson sits in a pickup truck on his ranch. (Jared Weiss \/ The Athletic)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

He will see second-year guard Steph Castle doing an interview and yell, \u201cStephanie!\u201d Veteran Kelly Olynyk will be mid-sentence, and suddenly you can hear Johnson yelling, \u201cDoggy!\u201d Olynyk will say \u201cDoggy\u201d right back with a smile.<\/p>\n

On a team known for having the biggest player in the game, Victor Wembanyama, Johnson takes up the most space in the room. He\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Heart and soul. That\u2019s what every single person in the Spurs\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

{“endpoint”:”https:\/\/api-prd-nyt.theathletic.com\/graphql”}<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just let me be myself and let my energy carry,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cOnce I got comfortable doing that and really just adjusted to that, I feel like it\u2019s just a well-oiled machine every day. I don\u2019t have to do anything different than just be myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson moved to the ranch around the time the Spurs drafted Wembanyama in 2023. It was a transition for Johnson\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

That direction found Johnson and the Spurs.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same thing he tries to do, in his own unique way, with his animals on the ranch.<\/p>\n

Shortly after his llama runs away, Johnson can finally see why Bonnie won\u2019t come close. She\u2019s actually on the lam (figuratively).<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s donkey comes limping by, on the prowl for the llama. Johnson isn\u2019t 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\u2019s not gonna stop him from being himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is dangerous! He\u2019s been chasing everybody. A\u2013hole,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cNow I gotta call the vet to get his leg looked at, cause he want to be an a\u2013hole. He don\u2019t get hurt. He a tank. So he must be really hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Johnson named his donkey \u201cChapo\u201d after infamous drug lord Joaquin \u201cEl Chapo\u201d Guzman. Though the donkey is one of the smaller animals on the farm \u2014 of the several dozen animals, only the mini goats and one baby cow stand closer to the ground \u2014 he is the most rambunctious.<\/p>\n

Just like Johnson. He says he is \u201con 10\u201d when he wakes up every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just me,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cHonestly, when I go in yelling and stuff like that, I don\u2019t have to find it. That\u2019s just who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Keldon<\/p>\n
\n
\n Keldon Johnson wrestles with his friends and family on his ranch. (Jared Weiss \/ The Athletic)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Blissful youth lives in every corner of the ranch. It doesn\u2019t take long to see where Johnson\u2019s personality comes from. His friends and family nurture it. Even the connection to the animals brings him closer to his true self.<\/p>\n

Johnson says the animal that represents him best is a white horse named Mu Mu, who lives alongside his other horse, Forrest.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s wild. He\u2019s wide open all the time,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cAs 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you can tell, they don\u2019t miss no meals,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cThey fat as s\u2014.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Sometimes Mu Mu gets too excited and breaks the fence. Johnson won\u2019t let him hear the end of it. Mu Mu tests his patience but is always worth the hassle. The farm wouldn\u2019t be the farm without Mu Mu, just like the Spurs wouldn\u2019t be the Spurs without Johnson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got to be a lot more serious out here with the animals,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cI get to joking with my teammates, but sometimes I got to be a lot more serious (here) because they get into things they shouldn\u2019t get into and they always up to something. But when I\u2019m not dealing with the animals, it\u2019s like a laugh show out here. All we do is laugh and joke and run around acting crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"Keldon<\/p>\n
\n
\n Keldon Johnson with his horse Mu Mu, who would not stop eating hay. (Jared Weiss \/ The Athletic)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Johnson proclaims himself a country boy, hailing from South Hill, a town of 4,709 in rural southern Virginia. He asks why I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n

A few minutes later, Mu Mu tries to eat my camera again.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like it\u2019s just so peaceful out here,\u201d he says. \u201cI get to spend quality time with my family here. I feel like it\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOERNE, Texas \u2014 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\u2019 run to the NBA Cup […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1877187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1877187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1877187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1877187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1877187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}