The San Antonio Spurs’ sixth man is a real-life cowboy 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 …
