Johnson Is Richest in Court Skills : Prep basketball: Ex-UCLA star Marques’ son overcomes many doubts in leading powerful Crenshaw.

When the new kid, the one with the famous father and the fancy address, arrived at Crenshaw High, his basketball teammates welcomed him with what they considered a suitable nickname.

“When I first came in, they called me ‘the Fresh Prince of Bel Air,’ ” Kristaan Johnson said, smiling.

That nickname is history, and Johnson can only laugh about his apprehension over transferring as a junior from a mostly white private school, Montclair Prep in Van Nuys, to the predominantly black public school.

Johnson now is focusing on helping the Cougars win their second consecutive State Division I championship, and sixth since 1983, when they play Carmichael Jesuit on Saturday at the Oakland Arena.

Johnson, a 6-foot-5, 225-pound forward, had hoped, but never expected, it would turn out this way. Last season, his layup at the buzzer beat rival Santa Ana Mater Dei in the Southern Regional final.

In the championship rematch last Saturday, the UCLA-bound Johnson, who is averaging 23 points and nine rebounds, led Crenshaw to a 71-67 victory with 27 points.

But before transferring to Crenshaw, Johnson had serious reservations. Although he was dominating Montclair Prep’s soft competition, the surroundings were comfortable and he didn’t have to push himself too hard.

Still, he had this dream of playing at a top level Division I college, as had his father, Marques, who starred at UCLA from 1973-77 and went on to an NBA career.

“I watched high school championship games on television when I was in ninth and 10th grades,” Johnson said. “I was like, ‘Wow, Mater Dei! Wow, Crenshaw!’ I thought I’d never be able to play on that level. But in 10th grade, my dad told me, ‘If you want to play Division I, I think it’s best if you go to Crenshaw.’ ”

His father, a former Crenshaw standout, also helped sort out the options.

“I told him he had a few choices,” said Marques, 38. “ ‘You could stay at Montclair Prep and be a decent player and, if you did play Division I ball, it probably wouldn’t be at a big school. Or you could go to a school like Crenshaw and have a shot to play at UCLA or another Pac-10 school.’ ”

But there was more to Johnson’s fear than going to school in the Crenshaw district: Could he live up to his father’s reputation?

Willie West, who has coached Crenshaw since 1970, assured Johnson that wasn’t important.

“Kids tend to feel everybody’s going to be comparing them to their father,” said West, 53. “I told him I’m not looking for him to do what his father did.”

Needing to live in the district in order for Kristaan to play at Crenshaw, the Johnson family moved from Bel-Air to a house Marques had previously owned in View Park.

It was another example of Marques boosting his son’s budding basketball career.

“Since I was young, my dad has always worked with me,” Kristaan said. “Every day we’d play one on one. He’d be out there timing me when I was running up the hill. That really helped our relationship. We got really, really close.”

Years before the training sessions, however, there was a tragedy that already had bonded the family.

On May 16, 1987, Marques’ 15-month-old son, Marques Jr., died of cardiac arrest less than 24 hours after having fallen into the family swimming pool.

“I was in the house and made the 911 call,” said Kristaan, who was 10 at the time of the accident. “That was traumatizing for me. It kind of brought our family a lot closer together. I think about it to myself a lot.”

Marques, who played 10 NBA seasons, including three with the Clippers, played one season in Italy after the accident. Then he began to focus on Kristaan’s game, sometimes with doubts.

“In ninth grade he was chunky,” Marques said. “He finished last in every drill so I was like, ‘Hit your books.’ But in between his ninth and 10th grade years he went all out. He was at the UCLA track every day and lost a lot of weight. He came back to Montclair Prep and started finishing first in every drill and turned himself around.”

When Kristaan finally decided to go to Crenshaw, he fretted about how he would be perceived.

“A lot of people thought I was stuck up or whatever,” he said. “They were always saying, ‘He thinks he’s all that because of his dad.’ But I didn’t want that, to come off like I was some type of arrogant braggadocio person when I’m really not. So I kind of kept to myself.”

Said senior forward Tremaine Fowlkes, who had transferred the same year from Culver City: “Knowing his father was a former NBA player (we thought) he was rich and spoiled. But the attitude toward him changed over a period of time.”

As did the attitude of college coaches, who were uncertain about Johnson’s abilities, even after his solid junior season.

“Many people felt, ‘Well, he goes to Crenshaw, he’s got a lot of players around him,’ ” said UCLA assistant coach Lorenzo Romar. “They said, ‘Let’s see what’s going to happen this summer at the ABCD camp.’ Well, Kris played among a bunch of stars, J.R. Henderson (East Bakersfield and UCLA signee), Jelani Gardner (Bellflower St. John Bosco). It was a stacked team, and he was the second-leading scorer. He impressed a lot of coaches.”

Especially UCLA’s. And the feeling was mutual.

“Living in Bel-Air, I used to go down to UCLA every day,” said Johnson, whose father is the radio analyst for Bruin broadcasts. “I am so familiar with the campus it’s like, where else would I have gone?”

He had an early taste of feeling part of the Bruins when John Wooden surprised him with a call last Saturday morning, hours before Crenshaw’s regional victory.

The day after the victory over Mater Dei, Johnson and Fowlkes, who has signed with California, were at a shopping mall when they got a glimpse of what lies in their future.

“People were like, ‘Kris and Tremaine, good game yesterday,’ ” Johnson said. “People I had never seen before. It felt good. It feels good to be recognized.”