Draft buzz: Will Kings take Porter?
The impatience is easy to understand.
This is what happens when a franchise’s failure is prolonged. The Kings haven’t been to the NBA playoffs since the start of George W. Bush’s second presidential term in 2006, increasingly frustrating a once-proud Sacramento fan base.
Yet as the draft looms Thursday and the Kings continue to see through all the red flags that surround Missouri’s mystery man, Michael Porter Jr., while pondering the fate of their No. 2 pick, it might be time to send oxygen masks to the California capital. The hyperventilating about what happens next has long since begun.
Porter is two things that aren’t so
Columnist USA TODAY
easily reconciled: a talent so tantalizing you could see him giving a Hall of Fame speech someday, and a 19-year-old whose back problems might wind up short-circuiting his career. And while the Kings are hardly the only ones having to decide which story they trust, they are the ones at the front of this line.
Phoenix is widely expected to take Arizona’s DeAndre Ayton with the No. 1 pick, and the Kings are known to be focusing on a group that includes Porter, Slovenian point guard Luka Doncic and Duke big man Marvin Bagley III.
In two years, Porter has gone from a possible No. 1 pick during his days at Nathan Hale High School in Seattle to a walking question mark after he suffered discomfort in the first half of his first college game against Iowa State, which was the result of a fall he suffered two summers earlier while going up for a dunk. The microdiskectomy surgery on Nov. 22, 2017, brought with it the widespread belief that his draft stock would plummet because, well, having a procedure to relieve pressure from herniated disks certainly counts as a con.
But Porter and his agent, Mark Bartelstein of Priority Sports, have done enough convincing that multiple topfive teams are still taking this long, hard look. There was an early June group workout in Chicago that left the Kings and everyone else in the building impressed, as Porter shot the ball very well, albeit in a standstill setting.
Then there was the second workout, with only lottery teams invited, that was seen as a crucial chance to get additional medical information. The pro day was canceled because Porter was experiencing hip spasms, and then all of a sudden it was back on. The event took place, with the Kings and Grizzlies known to be among the teams that felt good enough about the latest update that they remained seriously interested.
Yet in the Kings’ case, with a vice president of basketball operations in Vlade Divac who knows as well as anyone how back problems can threaten a career, the fear factor that they are now weighing is a familiar one. Consider this quote from Divac in 1992, six months af- ter he had surgery to repair a herniated disk that would cost him most of his third season with the Lakers.
“It was the first surgery in my basketball life,” said Divac, who would go on to play 13 more seasons for the Lakers, Hornets and Kings. “I was scared in the beginning that I never come back and play like I did before. There was much pressure on me.
“When I started to work out, I was happy. But when I came back on the court for a game, it was hard. I lost 44 games. I didn’t have feeling for the game. That took a long, long time to get back.”
For the Kings’ purposes, the Corliss Williamson comparison is far more applicable. Not long after he was drafted 13th overall by the Kings out of Arkansas in 1995, Williamson had a back surgery that cost him 29 games in his rookie season. As was the case with Divac, the early obstacle didn’t derail his career. He played 11 more seasons, averaging 11.1 points and 3.9 rebounds and, like Divac, becoming a fan favorite during his time in Sacramento.
But when it comes to the Porter situation, the stakes are on a whole different scale than anything Sacramento has faced in quite some time. It’s one thing to gamble with the No. 20 pick, like the Kings did last season when they traded for a player with a riddled injury history in Harry Giles. But missing on Porter, with players such as Doncic and Bagley available who are widely seen as safer bets, would do the kind of damage that this fan base simply can’t withstand.
And so the fans wait — and hyperventilate.