This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.
Point guards act as the “floor generals” for a basketball team and often set the tone as the heart and soul of a team, thus serving as an imperative piece of a winning franchise. For the Phoenix Suns in the 1990s and the Detroit Pistons in the 2000s, the two teams played very different styles of basketball (a fast-paced frenetic offensive style for the former, a more defense-minded, grind-it-out mentality for the latter), but were linked by the common factor of having an elite point guard in Kevin Johnson and Chauncey Billups, respectively. Though neither was ever regarded as THE best point guard in the NBA, both were top-tier floor generals for roughly a decade for among the winningest teams of their eras, thus bringing up the comparison:
Who was better – Chauncey Billups or Kevin Johnson?
The Beginning
Following standout high school and college basketball careers, Billups and Johnson were each NBA lottery draft picks, but both had the dubious distinction of being traded midway through their rookie seasons.
A Denver, Colorado native, Billups was a standout high school basketball player, earning All-State honors 4x, winning Colorado Mr. Basketball 3x and Colorado Player of the Year 2x, and being named a McDonald’s All-American as a senior. Interestingly, he chose to stay in-state at the University of Colorado for college ball (not traditionally a basketball powerhouse) and continued to dominate there, earning All-Big 12 First Team and Second Team All-American honors as a sophomore. Declaring early for the NBA after his sophomore season, Billups was drafted third overall in the 1997 NBA Draft by the Boston Celtics, but after just 51 games, was traded along with Roy Rogers, Dee Brown, and John Thomas to the Toronto Raptors for Kenny Anderson, Zan Tabak, and Popeye Jones; across his tumultuous rookie season with Boston and Toronto, he averaged a middling 11.2 points (on just 37.4% shooting), 2.4 rebounds, and 3.9 assists per game.
Similarly, Johnson grew up in Sacramento, California and starred in both basketball and baseball, leading the state in scoring and earning Northern California Player of the Year honors on the hardwood in his senior year of high school. He also stayed local at the University of California, Berkeley and was a four-year starter, earning First Team All-Pacific 10 (Pac-10) honors as a junior and senior while setting school records for points and assists (since broken, with Jason Kidd surpassing him in assists). At the same time, he played baseball for the school team (shortstop) and was even drafted by the Oakland Athletics in the 23rd round of the 1986 MLB Draft, but ultimately chose to focus on basketball. In the 1987 NBA Draft, Johnson was selected seventh overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers, but was traded midway through the year with Mark West, Tyrone Corbin, and a future draft pick to the Suns for Larry Nance, Mike Sanders, and a future draft pick; after playing limited minutes as a backup in Cleveland, he became the starting point guard in Phoenix and overall, averaged 9.2 points (46.1% shooting), 2.4 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game during his rookie year.
Career Comparison
Though not with the original teams that drafted them (and for Billups, there were numerous stops in-between), eventually both Billups and Johnson found a lasting home and became two of the league’s best point guards in their respective decades with their consistent and productive play year in and year out.
At the end of his rookie season, Billups was on the move once again, this time traded to his hometown Denver Nuggets in a blockbuster three-team deal where the Minnesota Timberwolves got Dean Garrett and Bobby Jackson, the Raptors received Zeljko Rebraca, Michael Williams, and the fifth overall pick in the 1999 NBA Draft (used on Jonathan Bender), and the Nuggets got Billups and Tyson Wheeler. The homecoming was short-lived though; after just 58 mediocre games over two seasons, Billups was sent midway through the 1999-2000 season to the Orlando Magic with Ron Mercer and Johnny Taylor for Chris Gatling, Tariq Abdul-Wahad, a future first-round pick, and cash. However, Billups never played a game for Orlando due to being on the injured list and was subsequently signed in the offseason by the Timberwolves. On a veteran-laden Minnesota team led by Kevin Garnett, he would slowly develop, improving from 9.3 points and 3.4 assists per game in 2000-2001 to 12.5 points and 5.5 assists per game in 2001-2002.
Once again a free agent after the 2001-2002 season, Billups signed with the Pistons to become the team’s starting point guard and playing in a tough-nosed starting lineup alongside Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Rasheed Wallace, and Ben Wallace, he would finally realize his vast potential on his fifth NBA team. Beginning with a 2002-2003 season in which he averaged 16.2 points (on 42.1% shooting) with 3.7 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game, he would score at least 16 points per game in every full season with Detroit; during the team’s championship season in 2003-2004 (more on that later), he had then-career highs of 16.9 points (though on only 39.4% shooting) and 5.7 assists per game. Individually, Billups continued to improve and earned the first of five straight All-Star selections in 2005-2006: 18.5 points, 3.1 rebounds, and a career-best 8.6 assists per game, also earning Second Team All-NBA and a second straight Second Team All-Defensive selection. This was followed by two more All-NBA Third Team selections in 2006-2007 and 2008-2009:
- 2006-2007: 17.0 points (42.7% shooting), 3.4 rebounds, and 7.2 assists per game
- 2008-2009: 17.7 points (41.8% shooting), 3.0 rebounds, and 6.4 assists per game; however, after six-and-a-half years with the Pistons, Billups was dealt midseason back to the Nuggets with Antonio McDyess and Cheikh Samb for Allen Iverson
Playing alongside elite scorer Carmelo Anthony in Denver, Billups continued his All-Star play; in his first full year back in his hometown, he put up 17.9 points (42.0% shooting), 3.0 rebounds, and 6.4 assists per game, followed by a career-best 19.5 points per game on 41.8% shooting with 3.1 rebounds and 5.6 assists per game in 2009-2010. However, the following season, he was included as part of the trade that sent Anthony to the New York Knicks, though spent only the remainder of the season with the Knicks. For the 2011-2012 season, Billups signed with the Los Angeles Clippers and would end up playing some shooting guard for the next couple of years alongside Chris Paul, but injuries limited him to only 42 total games over two seasons. Finally, Billups returned to the Pistons for an injury-riddled 2013-2014 season that saw him play just 19 games before announcing his retirement at age 37.
In contrast to Billups’ early nomadic ways, Johnson quickly found a home in Phoenix – in his first full season with the Suns in 1988-1989, he averaged 20.4 points per on 50.5% shooting with career-bests of 4.2 rebounds, and 12.2 assists per game, thus winning the Most Improved Player Award, earning the first of three straight All-NBA Second Team selections, and becoming just the third player in league history to averaged 20+ points and 12+ assists in a season (after Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas). In fact, for three straight seasons, he would post a double-double of 20 points and 10 assists per game, joining Oscar Robertson and Thomas as the only players to do so up to that point, and earned back-to-back All-Star selections:
- 1989-1990: a career-high 22.5 points per game on 49.9% shooting with 3.6 rebounds and 11.4 assists per game
- 1990-1991: 22.2 points per game on 51.6% shooting with 3.5 rebounds and 10.1 assists per game
During the 1991-1992 season, Johnson averaged a double-double for the final time (19.7 points and 10.7 assists per game) and made the All-NBA Third Team. However, over the next four seasons, he was plagued by a variety of injuries and health issues (in particular sports hernias) that limited him to no more than 67 games played in any given season; when healthy, he remained one of the NBA’s elite point guards, as evidenced by a 1993-1994 season in which he posted 20.0 points (on 48.7% shooting), 2.5 rebounds, and 9.5 assists per game to earn his final All-Star and All-NBA selections (Second Team). At 30 years of age in 1996-1997, Johnson appeared in 70 games and had the last great season of his career with 20.1 points and 9.3 assists per game, but his body broke down shortly thereafter: after playing in just 50 games in 1997-1998 and averaging only 9.5 points and 4.9 assists per game, he retired at age 31. Nevertheless, after sitting out the entire 1998-1999 season, he briefly returned to the Suns in 1999-2000 to replace an injured Jason Kidd late in the season before retiring for good.
On one hand, Billups had the longer NBA career and was much more durable as well, but on the other hand, Johnson was generally the more prolific player with better career scoring (17.9 to 15.2 points per game), rebounding (3.3 to 2.9 rebounds per game), and passing numbers (9.1 to 5.4 assists per game) on more efficient shooting in a faster-paced offensive system. Despite the superior numbers for Johnson, the two were similarly decorated during their careers: Billups made more All-Star and All-Defensive Teams (5x to 3x and 2x to none, respectively), but Johnson earned more All-NBA selections (5 to 3). Likewise, the advanced metrics tell a bit of a mixed story between peak dominance and longevity – while Johnson has the better career Player Efficiency Rating (PER) at 20.7 to 18.8, Billups accumulated more career Win-Shares (120.8 to 92.8). At present, neither player is a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, but both point guards have compelling cases to make.
Regular Season Statistics
| Chauncey Billups | Player | Kevin Johnson |
| 17 (1997-2014) | Seasons | 12 (1987-1998, 1999-2000) |
| 1,043 | Games Played | 735 |
| 15.2 | Points | 17.9 |
| 2.9 | Rebounds | 3.3 |
| 5.4 | Assists | 9.1 |
| 41.5% | Field Goal % | 49.3% |
| 89.4% | Free Throw % | 84.1% |
| 18.8 | PER | 20.7 |
| 120.8 | Win Shares | 92.8 |
| 5x | All-Star Games | 3x |
| 3x | All-NBA | 5x |
| – | MVP | – |
| 1x | NBA Titles | – |
| 1x | NBA Finals MVP | – |
| 2x All-Defensive | Other Awards | Most Improved |
| – | Hall of Fame Induction | – |
Source: Basketball-Reference.com
In addition to being terrific annually during the regular season, both Billups and Johnson elevated their games in the postseason and led their respective teams to the NBA Finals, with the former coming away with a title.
Though he played with seven different NBA teams (and made the playoffs with five of them), by far Billups’ greatest postseason successes came as the floor general of the Larry Brown-coached defensive-minded Pistons in the early 2000s. Across five consecutive playoff trips where Detroit made it past the first round, he averaged nearly 18 points and 6 assists per game, culminating in back-to-back Finals appearances:
- 2003-2004: beat the Shaq and Kobe-led Lakers in five games, with Billups earning NBA Finals MVP on the strength of 21.0 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 5.2 assists per game
- 2004-2005: lost to the San Antonio Spurs and their triumvirate of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker in the full seven games despite another strong performance from Billups (a team-high 20.4 points per game with 5.0 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game)
Analogous to Billups’ success with the Pistons, Johnson made the playoffs with the Suns in every season except for his rookie year; though the team’s success in the late 1980s and early to mid-1990s was mixed, Johnson did average double-doubles in the postseason 4x, including 3x with 20+ points and 10+ assists per game. Notably, during Charles Barkley’s 1992-1993 MVP season, Phoenix advanced all the way to the Finals before losing in six games to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls; for his part, Johnson contributed 17.2 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 6.5 assists per game in the defeat, including playing a Finals-record 62 minutes in a 129-121 triple overtime victory in Game 3. Though the Suns never reached the Finals again under Johnson’s guidance, he continued to play at a high level in the playoffs and deliver memorable moments, including an iconic baseline dunk over Houston Rockets center Hakeem Olajuwon in the 1994-1995 playoffs.
On the international stage, both point guards were in that second tier of call-ups for Team USA – though he never played on an Olympic squad, Billups did win gold medals at the both the FIBA Americas and FIBA World Championships; likewise, Johnson was part of one World Championship team as a member of the Dream Team II in 1994.
Playoff Statistics
| Chauncey Billups | Player | Kevin Johnson |
| 146 | Games Played | 105 |
| 17.3 | Points | 19.3 |
| 3.4 | Rebounds | 3.3 |
| 5.7 | Assists | 8.9 |
| 41.1% | Field Goal % | 46.9% |
| 88.0% | Free Throw % | 83.3% |
| 19.1 | PER | 19.1 |
| 20.6 | Win Shares | 9.4 |
Source: Basketball-Reference.com
Every athlete goes through a natural career lifecycle, from starting off as a rookie to reaching peak years of performance and finally, declining into the inevitable retirement due to a combination of age and/or injury; whereas it took a while for Billups to find his place in the NBA, injuries took their toll on Johnson and led to his relatively early retirement. For Hall of Fame caliber players across sports, I like to look at a concept I call a “decade of dominance.” The thinking behind this is that for most Hall of Fame type careers, there are roughly 10 great seasons that define an athlete (this idea is embodied in a sense by the NFL’s All-Decade teams), though due to injury or other factors, they might not be 10 consecutive years.
Decade of Dominance
| Chauncey Billups | Player | Kevin Johnson |
| 2001-2011 | Decade of Dominance | 1987-1997 |
| 767 | Games Played | 679 |
| 16.8 | Points | 18.6 |
| 3.1 | Rebounds | 3.3 |
| 6.1 | Assists | 9.5 |
| 42.3% | Field Goal % | 49.4% |
| 89.8% | Free Throw % | 83.9% |
| 20.2 | PER | 20.8 |
| 108.9 | Win Shares | 89.0 |
Source: Basketball-Reference.com
Across their respective decades of dominance, Johnson was generally the superior player on both traditional and advanced metrics, but he missed a significant amount of games due to injury, thus resulting in Billups contributing more Win-Shares during this span.
My Thoughts
In a head-to-head matchup between Chauncey Billups and Kevin Johnson, it comes down to a clash of styles between the former’s toughness and gritty play vs. the latter’s explosiveness and flash; unfortunately, since Billups came into the NBA right at the very tail end of Johnson’s career, the duo only faced off against each other once in a game (and Billups was a little-used reserve at the time). So who do I think was better? True, Billups was a “big game” player and instrumental in leading the Pistons to their first title since the “Bad Boys” era; in short, he was an ideal fit for the style of play during that era and for that specific team. However, in the context of contemporaries and the broader league, I think Johnson was the better player – he found his footing in the NBA earlier and was consistently excellent for a slightly longer period of time, was a more dynamic scorer and passer, and was more efficient shooting the ball – not to say he was as good as his contemporary Isiah Thomas, but an detached look at their career numbers shows some striking similarities; sadly, injuries sapped him of far too many games and despite Phoenix’s dominance in the early 1990s, they could never quite get past Jordan’s Bulls. As to the Hall of Fame question, I think both are deserving – Billups for his leadership and winning ways, Johnson for his underrated greatness.
Thus, after weighing their careers against each other in terms of statistics, achievements, and impact, the winner of this faceoff is:
Kevin Johnson
As always, vote for your choice and leave your thoughts and comments below.
Further Reading
More Good Stuff
- Watch: Get tickets to see the Detroit Pistons, Phoenix Suns, or any other NBA team in action
- Wear: Buy sports apparel for the Pistons, Suns, or any other NBA team
- Collect: Buy unique sports memorabilia for Chauncey Billups, Kevin Johnson, or your favorite NBA player(s) or team(s)
- Play: Show off your basketball knowledge by playing daily fantasy basketball
- Build: Start your own sports website/blog
Previous
H2H 141: Shane Doan vs. Ryan Smyth
