Player to Watch: John Salmons

FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.

Basketball workhorses are usually found in frontlines. We think of the lunch pail being filled with rebounds and scrappy play, not jumpers and reverse lay-ups. Antonio McDyess, Wayman Tisdale, Jeff Foster, Luis Scola -- those are the NBA players we associate with the blue collar.

But I see John Salmons as a basketball workhorse ... a scoring workhorse. In Luol Deng's spot last year, and replacing Ben Gordon for the 2009-10 campaign, Salmons fills in 15-20 points on decent shooting, punches his time card and goes home. It's flashy in the immediate -- when he cocks his head and swishes an 18-footer, or when he goes to the cup and scoops it over the defenders -- but by the end of the game, it's just another day of work.

Scoring can be glamorous, even if it never reaches the standard of beauty. A player like Carmelo Anthony, for instance, doesn't have a particularly heartmelting jumper -- nothing like a Ray Allen or Dirk Nowitzki. And 'Melo typically operates out of the mid-range area -- nothing glitzy about that. But the relentless with which he attacks the scoreboard, the fury of hard dribble to pull-up jumper -- it's a glamorous style of scoring in its totality, with no one piece drawing on beauty.

Salmons's moves also fail to elicit stylistic awe, though they are at times incredible. Salmons just presents them in a way that is so ... ordinary. There are a million stories of timid kids being unleashed when the ball's in their hands -- Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant, even Dirk or Michael Redd. But Salmons is never unleashed. He isn't bottling up the energy and focusing it on the ball, like Rose and Durant do. Salmons just doesn't have that energy, that fury gene. He has no burgeoning need for self-expression. Nothing.

He is the equivalent of a chained up Tim Duncan who is allowed only to shoot 15-foot jumpers. (And not bank shots, which have become overly romanticized, causing fans to place unearned sentimentality on Duncan.) A toned down Tim Duncan, people. That's John Salmons on the court: keeping calm because there's no other way to exist. Not no other way to win -- that's Duncan, that's the Spurs. For Salmons, there is no other way to live than quietly. He's the John Wayne of the NBA.

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In each of the past four seasons -- one with Philadelphia, two with Sacramento, one split between Sacramento and Chicago -- Salmons has increased his shooting frequency and increased his shooting proficiency. This all happened within Salmons's assumed peak (age 26-29), so you aren't looking at a player growing up in the NBA. Salmons had been an established bench player before beginning his road to increased infamy.

Often, a larger role comes with lowered efficiency. But in taking on larger roles every season, Salmons is thriving. It speaks to the sort of player who can't get yoked up playing in a complementary role, a guy who needs the spotlight to thrive. Salmons served as the back-up to Allen Iverson during much of his Philadelphia tenure, and this is classic Iverson: relegated to bench duty, he might as well stay home. Give him the ball every play, and he's a star.

Salmons was awful as a bit player ... on a per-minute basis. As his minutes and subsequently his role in his team's offense have increased, Salmons has not just raised his per-game statistics ... but his per-minute statistics. Back in Philly, if you have Salmons 36 minutes, he'd give you 11 points. Give him 36 minutes now, and he'll give you 18 points. When he is treated like a star, he has thrived.

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These two observations about Salmons don't fit. How can the most unassuming, flashless 18-point scorer in the league also be so needy in terms of on-court shine to do his thing? Even the unpopular high school girl with the incredible pipes has some visible hope peaking through her eyes. Salmons has none. He is the either the greatest purveyor of misdirection since Cheney, or a true NBA enigma. Believe what you will.