After playing very little in his first two seasons, Amir Johnson became one of the game's best kept secrets at power forward. With the Raptors approaching a full rebuild, they locked Johnson up on a five-year, $34 million contract on Thursday.

Players like Johnson are why using advanced statistics are crucial because he averaged just 6.2 points and 4.8 rebounds in 17.7 minutes per game during the 09-10 season. If you extend that out to 36 minutes, Johnson would average 12.7 points, 9.8 boards and 1.6 blocks. He has shown the capacity to block shots at a much higher clip while he was with the Pistons and his defensive impact was negated by the overall weakness Toronto displayed on that side of the floor.

But the problem with extending out Johnson's minutes is he has a difficult time remaining on the floor due to his sever propensity for committing fouls. His has averaged 6.5 fouls per 36 minutes over his career and staying on the floor is absolutely something he must improve since he is being paid the kind of money that demands 25-30 minutes of floor time per night.

The reason why Johnson has been such an underrated player is his ability to score the ball. He has always been an incredibly efficient scorer, with a career True Shooting Percentage of 62.1% that hit 63.9% in 09-10.

He was flat-out excellent on the pick-and-roll, as well as in the post and in transition. Johnson's upside is of course much higher on the pick-and-roll when playing with Jose Calderon as opposed to Jarrett Jack. Johnson rolls to the bucket extremely well and is able to use combination of athleticism, skill and agility to finish. He will finish at the rim with a dunk, but will just as often use his soft touch on the finger-roll.

In the post, Johnson uses a similar type of game as he does on the pick-and-roll. He has a nice little baby hook and he also will occasionally shoot the mid-range jumper out of the post. He will get muscled off the block on occasion since he's so slender, but he is creative enough to make difficult shots at a good percentage.

On the plus/minus board, Johnson had a net points per 100 possessions of +5.6, which puts him in Chris Bosh territory.

Johnson isn't Chris Bosh and the Raptors aren't expecting him to fully replace Bosh, but Jay Triano and Bryan Colangelo could certainly do a lot worse than having his level of offensive production already secured. He isn't the kind of passer and playmaker that Bosh is, but the scoring is there when he gets his opportunities and he puts up comparable numbers on the glass.

Johnson's contract is essentially a full mid-level exception and it would have been difficult to see a situation where another team would have offered him as much money, plus an opportunity to compete for a starting job.

But this contract is a perfect example of why having such an emphasis on money hurts the way we look at sports. Since the salary cap determines the players teams can sign, every dollar counts and Johnson's financials are relevant even if he is the kind of talented young player a franchise like the Raptors needs to keep.

Grade for Raptors: B-

The deal is great for Johnson since it is easily fair market value and he is guaranteed a lot of playing time for the foreseeable future regardless of Ed Davis' development.

With the way we've seen big contract being tossed around so far, the early birds will be getting the A's and those that wait after the money begins to dry up will be left with below value deals.

Grade for Amir Johnson: A

• Chris Reina is the executive editor of RealGM. Follow him on Twitter at @CR_Reina.