Outside of Zion Williamson, there’s at least one other player that has shown effortless shot-creation ability last season.
His name is Kevin Porter, Jr.
According to Team USA U18 basketball’s player measurements, the most recent measurements available are:
Height w/o shoes: 6’4.5″
Height w/ shoes: 6’5.5″
Wingspan: 6’9″
Standing reach: 8’8″
No step vert: 27″
Maximum vert: 34″
Weight: 217lbs.
This compares him similarly to the L.A. Clippers’ Sindarius Thornwell at age 22.
| Sindarius Thornwell SG-SF | 6′ 3.5” | 6′ 4.75” | 211.6 | 6′ 10” | 8′ 7” |
The tricky part to Porter’s measurements is it’s extremely tough to find his combination of height and wingspan with a standing reach that compares with NBA level power forwards and small forwards.
Last year, his season was shortened due to a thigh contusion that took longer to heal, and worsened by an indefinite suspension due to conduct issues.
When he was on the floor, however, he was seen as a shot creator and scorer for the USC Trojans and put up solid numbers for a guy that played just over 20 minutes per game.
His game is easy on the eyes when he’s off and creating his own shot. That is easily his NBA translatable skill.
Profile
What Kevin Porter Jr. has in spades, is a combination of size, ball-handling ability, shiftiness, body control, and shooting ability off of that creation.
At the 56-second mark of the video is the most telling of his footwork, body control, and ability to pull up.
While the shot creation is intriguing, it’s the details that need a lot of work. He’s a capable passer but I’ve yet to see any real advanced passes out of his ability to attack the rim. He doesn’t really pass outside of his radius, which is around 15′, even if USC’s offensive spacing didn’t help things. His turnover rate is high, at 17.9 percent (anything 15 percent or lower is preferred), and that’s with 23.3 percent usage rate.
According to Hoop-math.com, he converts 68.6 percent of his shots at the rim with 50 percent of those shots being assisted. That’s an indicator of his length around the rim despite a relatively average maximum vertical.
Basically, he plays like an awesome streetball player with the shot creation, but when it comes to advanced NBA playmaking, he’s yet to really show that.
Defensively, it speaks very well to his natural instincts that he has a 2.6 percent steal rate and a 2.1 percent block rate. Generally speaking, anything over 2.0 percent in each category says something about a player’s natural instincts on a basketball floor, let alone an NBA one. Almost every All-Star player has had good steal rates and block rates, regardless of position. It hints at the ability to anticipate and react, and that skill goes very far in terms of projecting an NBA upside.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he did really well during NBA workouts. He’s a capable shooter, shoots with incredible three-point volume (5.9 attempts per-40) and converted at a 41.2 percent clip. This is indicative of the rhythm he develops off-the-dribble, and it would also make sense that he shows difficulty developing that same rhythm at the free throw line, converting at just 52.2 percent there.
Where Does He Fit With The Lakers?
The funny thing about Porter’s projected role is that he excels at what the Lakers tried to make of Brandon Ingram in the halfcourt all season long. Ingram was used as a go-to-scorer in the halfcourt and Porter has much more shot diversity.
It wouldn’t surprise me early on if he took to a 3-and-D offensive archetype in the halfcourt. He’s a capable spot-up shooter with the ability to attack closeouts with ease.
The other thing is, this is a weak draft. While it makes more sense to look for high-quality role players, specifically for this year’s draft, the scoring talent of Porter may be too much to pass up on.
He played in the Drew League. He played for USC. He wouldn’t exactly have to move far if he ended up playing at Staples Center for at least 41 games.
As mentioned, outside of Williamson, it’s difficult to find a plus athlete with good size and effortless shot-creating ability. You don’t often see Porter using screens to get his own shot. What you do see is NBA level scoring ability. He’s an NBA level scorer, but does he have enough to show that he can stick in the league? The NBA is full of scorers, but getting better at the details; defense and passing, could make him a star in the future.
