This week’s article is based on one of my childhood basketball heroes, who unfortunately passed away a few days ago at the age of 52.

Not being endowed with much height for the basketball court, my eyes were always searching for good examples of point-guards (the natural position I had to play) in my playing days.

One of such brilliant examples was provided by Dennis Johnson, a player with a very humble upbringing and who had to fight hard to prove himself. Yet, when he did, he ended as being a much loved start player.

In fact, Johnson, whose full name was Dennis Wayne Johnson, is described by many as a born fighter who did not have the greatest natural skills. However he managed to fight his way from mediocrity as a young player (he even had to stay a lot on the substitute’s bench in his final year of high school) to excellence as an NBA player where during his thirteen year playing career with the Seattle SuperSonics, the Phoenix Suns and the Boston Celtics, Johnson established himself as one of the best defensive guards in the league.

The glamour of NBA stardom was definitely far the opposite from Johnson’s childhood in Compton, California. He was born on 18th September 1954, the eighth of 16 children, the son of a bricklayer and a social worker.

Johnson’s father, who was not a great basketball shooter, taught young Dennis the trick and fundamentals of the game. Johnson would later joke that this explained his somewhat erratic jump shot!

As a 5 foot 9” guard at Dominguez High School, Johnson played only a minute or two each game and his future in basketball looked very bleak.

After graduation, the coach at Harbor Junior College saw Johnson playing street ball, noticed his tough defense, and asked him to enroll. Johnson quit his warehouse job (at that time paying $2.75-an-hour much different than his first year NBA minimum wage at $50,000) and opted to go back to school. Two years later and seven inches taller at 6 feet 6”, Johnson averaged 18.3 points and 12.0 rebounds and led Harbor to a state junior college title.

Johnson, however, received only two scholarship offers, from Pepperdine and Azusa Pacific and he opted for the former where he averaged 15.7 points and helped Pepperdine to go into the Top 20 and make the NCAA Tournament where scouts managed to have a good look at him. After that season Johnson applied as a hardship case for the 1976 NBA Draft.

Johnson was yet very doubtful that any pro team would be interested in him. However, he was shocked when the Seattle SuperSonics made him their second-round pick when the team already had good guards in Don Watts and Freddie Brown.

In the first season, Johnson barely made the team. He scored 9.2 points per game in limited duty as a rookie player.

Then a coaching shake-up, in the following season, gave Johnson his big break. Lenny Wilkens took over the team (then having a 5-17 record). This coach immediately traded Watts and gave Johnson a starting spot in the first five as Seattle went on an immediate 12-game home winning streak.

The Sonics finished at 47-35 and the qualified for the NBA finals against the Washington Bullets where they squandered a three-games-to-two lead and lost in seven games.

Johnson and the Sonics would not be denied the next year. Johnson improved his scoring to 15.9 points per game and made his first appearances on both the All-Star and All-Defensive teams. In the finals, the Sonics met the Bullets again but this time won the series 4-1 with Johnson being named the Most Valuable Player.

In the following year, the Sonics lost in the Conference Finals and Johnson was traded to the Phoenix Suns where he played for three seasons averaging over 16 points per game.

His working potential was noticed and Johnson was traded to the Boston Celtics where he fit perfectly into a powerful jigsaw of great players of the likes of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Bill Walton and Robert Parish.

In his first year in Boston the Celtics won their 15th NBA title, and in his third year they won their 16th.

Johnson’s buzzer-beater to win Game 4 in the 1985 finals against the Lakers and his game-winning basket off Larry Bird’s famous steal in Game 5 of the 1987 conference finals against Detroit placed him among the best-loved Celtics.

Johnson retired at 35 years of age in 1990 season as the 11th player in NBA history to score more than 15,000 points and dish out 5,000 assists. His number “3” was retired to the Boston Garden showcase.

In the famous magazine, Sports Illustrated, teammate Larry Bird, who is certainly not known for passing around compliments, called Johnson “the best I have ever played with.”

Johnson stayed on as a scout for the Celtics and became an assistant coach in 1993 and then became an assistant with the Los Angeles Clippers in February 2000.

He was contracted as the head coach for the Austin Toros in the NBA Development League.

Dennis Johnson died in the last days of February after coaching a practice with the Toros suffering from cardiac arrest when he was 52 years old.

Johnson played Toros player Jamar Smith in a game of 1-on-1 after that day’s practice and everything seemed normal.

In fact, Toros spokeswoman Perri Travillion said she was talking with Johnson on the sidewalk, after practice, outside the building when he collapsed. Johnson was joking about getting a parking ticket.

Travillion said she called 911 and that Johnson never regained consciousness. She said Johnson did not appear to have overexerted himself at practice and did not complain of any discomfort before he collapsed. Paramedics tried to resuscitate him for 23 minutes before he was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. Johnson was survived by his wife, Donna, and two sons and a daughter.

“He was one of the most underrated players in the history of the game, in my opinion, and one of the greatest Celtic acquisitions of all time,” said former Boston teammate Danny Ainge, now the Celtics’ executive director of basketball operations.

“The bigger the game, the better he played,” former Celtics general manager Jan Volk said. “All he wanted to do was win. He desperately wanted to win and make a contribution to a winning effort.

“D.J.” will always be remembered for his ability to play against much taller opponents using his very fast speed. He always seemed to be in the middle of the action.

He was filled with a contagious competitiveness. “I’m a winner,” he once said. “I put my heart into the game. I hate to lose. I accept it when it comes, but I still hate it. That’s the way I am.”