As the Lakers and Nets clashed on Christmas Day, millions were tuned in to see the star power: LeBron James. Russell Westbrook. James Harden.

But to a small-but-faithful Orange County contingent, Stanley Johnson was the real star.

Mater Dei boys basketball coach Gary McKnight was celebrating Christmas with family, sitting next to his nonagenarian mother-in-law while fiddling with an unfamiliar TV remote. He thought he might be lucky enough to see Johnson, one of the best players to ever suit up for the Monarchs, play a handful of minutes after signing a 10-day contract via hardship exemption. Instead, he was treated to 27 minutes of the 25-year-old wing trying to stay step-for-step with Brookyn’s Harden, one of the craftiest scorers who has ever lived.

“I was very proud,” he said. “I think he’s learned from being a young kid in the NBA, ‘If I really bust my tail on defense, I’ll have a role in this league.’ … I think he’s perfect for the Lakers.”

Perhaps there’s some Mater Dei-based bias in that sentiment, but Johnson caught more than just the eye of his old coach on Saturday when he spent the bulk of his Lakers debut trying to corral Harden and helping fuel a comeback that came just short. It was the most exposure the 25-year-old has had in some time: a national TV debut with his hometown team that he loved to watch growing up, lining up against one of the league’s elite guards.

And yet Johnson’s ease was his most notable attribute: his comfort in the Lakers’ system, his acceptance of his defense-first role, his cool approach to playing in the newly minted Crypto.com Arena. These are all familiar components to the Fullerton native, after all.

“It’s just doing my job, like another day in the office,” he said. “I’ve been coming to Staples Center my whole life and it’s kinda a little easier to play at home. I’m very comfortable. I kinda just like let it happen.”

That might seem like confident words for a young player on a 10-day deal, but before Johnson was clawing out a living in the NBA, he was one of Southern California’s anointed players.

The abbreviated resume: Johnson was a four-time state champion at Mater Dei, a McDonald’s All-American, first-team all Pac-12 at Arizona, and a No. 8 overall draft pick in 2015. It was obvious to many that he was league bound, not just because he was 6-foot-7 and “built like Zeus” as McKnight puts it, but because he had such a dedicated work ethic. He would work out before and after school at American Sports Centers in Anaheim, occasionally even getting invites to play hoops with a local admirer – Kobe Bryant.

South Bay Lakers coach Miles Simon first met Johnson when he was 14, a young, hungry player coming up from his high school alma mater. Johnson would go on to play center, forward, shooting guard and point guard for his four-peat. He would be whatever kind of player his team needed him to be.

But even top prep phenoms can hit speed bumps in the pros, where every player was a star in his hometown. Johnson came into the league oozing promise, but never developed his offensive game past a certain threshold: He’s averaged 6.2 points on 37.5 shooting in his career. After stops in Detroit, New Orleans and Toronto, he found himself on the outside looking in this offseason.

That’s where a lot of NBA stories end. Not Johnson’s. He started looking for G League opportunities, landing in South Bay where he could play under Simon’s wing. But Johnson also told his new coach not to take it easy on him because of their Mater Dei and Arizona connections.

“He said, ‘Miles, coach me hard – you can coach me any way you want,’” Simon recalled. “‘I really just want to win, I just want to play, because I haven’t had an opportunity to get legit minutes.’ And he’s just scratched and clawed to keep his footing in the league.”

Simon called Johnson a “force” in South Bay for the weeks he was there, helping the team to a 5-1 start. By early December he was called up to the Chicago Bulls, where he had been a training camp cut. But just a few days later, he wound up somewhere much less exciting: the NBA’s COVID-19 protocols.

Johnson found himself stuck in a Miami hotel room quarantining for weeks. But it was there that he said some conversations he had with his pastor really took hold.

“To get that type of opportunity and then it goes away, you’re kinda just stuck in the middle,” he said. “You can’t control anything, but you really can’t control anything anyway. So I just stopped worrying about it. I did my time in quarantine, focused on what I needed to focus on while I was there, tried to keep my mind right and stay happy.”

Johnson believes it was divine action that led to his signing in Los Angeles, just after he had flown home from his stay in Miami. But Los Angeles also knew what it was getting after seeing Johnson for weeks in their El Segundo facility. A team that has lacked perimeter and wing defenders – especially since a COVID-19 outbreak hit – needed Johnson to help compete on that end with the roster thinning out.

One of the biggest benefits of having Simon, a former Lakers assistant, coaching the G League is that the two teams now use the exact same terminology. Even though Christmas was his first day, Johnson was prepared for the defensive calls from the sideline and from teammates. Simon also noted how precise Johnson was in following the game plan.

“I could tell in the game, the plan was to send Harden to his right hand as much as possible,” he said. “Stanley kept him to his right hand pretty much every possession he was on him.”

NBA data shows the Lakers leaned on Johnson to guard Harden about 43% of possessions, during which the Lakers surrendered 21 points. No one can truly lock down the Beard, but Johnson’s steady approach helped the Lakers make a late run when they leaned on him down the stretch.

It’s hard to say what any 10-day player’s future is, especially these days. The Lakers let a 10-day with Isaiah Thomas run out on Sunday. They also had Rajon Rondo go into protocols, opening another roster spot. So many players have been called up from the G League ranks, that league is literally on hiatus until early January because their rosters have been culled. Johnson understands the on-the-fly nature of this season, too, saying at one point with a laugh: “I think tomorrow will be great for me to find out what I can bring (to this team).”

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He has believers in the organization, perhaps Simon most of all.

“He knows that one night doesn’t get him a job on the floor with the Lakers; you gotta do it over and over,” Simon said. “But if he keeps playing like he did last night, he definitely has a chance.”

There’s nothing more Johnson must do in the eyes of McKnight, who calls him “right up there” with the best players to ever come out of Mater Dei. He already has the longest NBA career of any of McKnight’s players.

But it’s clear that Johnson wants more, too. Saturday night was a special experience for him, and he’s all for making more memories in the NBA.

“One of the things that helped me fall in love with basketball was watching the Lakers play,” he said. “So I think being able to play for the Lakers on this day, it’s a special day for the NBA, it’s something that I’ll remember for a long time.”