Tag: Michael Porter

If Michael Porter Jr. keeps playing like this, the NBA is in trouble

The Denver Nuggets made it to the 2020 Western Conference Finals, though the emergence of Michael Porter Jr. raises their ceiling even more.

The Denver Nuggets made it to the 2020 Western Conference Finals, yet the emergence of Michael Porter Jr. raises their ceiling even more.

Denver, of course, already has an MVP frontrunner and all-world contributor in Nikola Jokic. Their backcourt is in a good position under Jamal Murray, a developing young scorer who has averaged at least 16.7 points per game in each of his professional seasons since becoming a full-time starter.

Porter, however, is the one who made headlines on Monday after defeating the Dallas Mavericks. Despite coming off the bench, he scored 30 points in just 27 minutes of action. While he has appeared in only seven games so far this season, that marks the second time he had reached the 30-point mark in 2020-21.

Even though it is still a limited sample size, Porter has averaged 1.32 points per possession so far this season. That ranks as the best mark (minimum: 45 possessions) among all players in the Western Conference.

One encouraging takeaway is that his turnover percentage is down from his rookie season (11.5 percent) to now (7.2 percent).

But the main reason why he is so successful is that Porter has a dynamic tool kit of ways he can beat his defender. Approximately half of his field-goal attempts are three-pointers, 30 percent have at the rim and 21 percent are from midrange. That makes him a triple-threat as a scorer, which is one of the most coveted traits for an emerging star.

The 22-year-old forward is shooting 47.7 percent on his three-pointers (94th percentile among players at his position) and 55.5 percent (93rd percentile) from midrange, via Cleaning the Glass. His jumper looks effortless and also sustainable as he continues his career.

One of the more noticeable differences is that he is hitting his shots from the corners more often. He connected on 0.7 corner three-pointers per 36 minutes last season, shooting 43.6 percent from that area of the floor. But this season, that has increased to 1.3 three-pointers from the corner per 36 while shooting 58.3 percent on these attempts.

Considering how closely defenders have to guard Jokic and Murray, there will be a lot of opportunities for Porter if he waits in the corner. Jokic does not have to worry about whether or not Porter will sink these jumpers.

Jokic, who currently leads the league in assists, is averaging 8.5 assists per 36 during the 461 minutes he has played without Porter. But during the time that he has had with Porter alongside him, he is averaging 12.2 assists per 36.

The more often that Porter makes these looks after passes from Jokic, the more often opponents will have to close out on him. If they have to play him closer and collapse onto him, Jokic and Murray could possibly come away with more open looks.

Easy buckets are few and far between in the NBA but the Nuggets have a very unique offense. When they have their best five players on the court, everyone on the floor can shoot. This creates better spacing than rival teams.

For example, Utah needs Rudy Gobert to live in the dunker spot to complete for lobs and easy putbacks. While the opposing big waits next to Gobert, they can switch on to someone who is driving to the rack. But if the other five has to stay attached to Jokic on the perimeter, there may be a more open driving lane for a nimble, 6-foot-10 force like Porter.

As such, it is no surprise that Porter has gotten better when he is attacking the basket, improving his field goal percentage at the rim from 66.9 percent last season to 72.0 percent so far this year. Porter, who has a 7-foot wingspan, is currently 9-for-11 (81.2 percent) when cutting to the basket, per Synergy.

Put it all together and you can see hints of what could be when these three players are all playing their top-tier basketball.

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The HoopsHype Weekly: The Top 10 X-Factor players for the 2020 NBA playoffs

HoopsHype chooses and ranks 10 X-Factor type players who might come out of nowhere and come up huge in the upcoming 2020 playoffs.

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TOP 10 PLAYOFF X-FACTORS: At times, players come out of nowhere in the playoffs and elevate their games, giving their teams the unexpected push they needed to win a vital game or two.

Who could those players be at the Orlando bubble playoffs? Below, we rank our Top 10:

10. Dion Waiters: Averaging 11.9 points and 2.4 assists in the bubble, Waiters never runs low on self-confidence and has the capability to get hot at a moment’s notice. The Lakers could certainly use his perimeter scoring in the playoffs, and his drive-and-kick game remains underrated.

9. Seth Curry: The younger Curry brother is an elite outside shooter in his own right, and his knockdown prowess from three-point range could come up huge for Dallas against the favored Clippers in the first round.

8. Andre Roberson: In his first action since a year-plus-long injury recovery, the Colorado product averaged merely 2.8 points in the bubble, but did knock down a healthy 37.5 percent of his three-point looks. Against a high-powered offense in Houston in Round 1, Roberson’s defensive chops will be hugely important for OKC’s chances.

7. Donte DiVincenzo: A non-star player stepping up for the Bucks in the playoffs would be almost unfair considering how loaded they are as is, but if anyone can do it, it’s DiVincenzo, thanks to his competitiveness, his confident nature and his ability to get hot quick.

6. Eric Gordon: With Russell Westbrook set to miss time with a quad injury, Gordon will be even more important for Houston’s chances in the postseason. Gordon has dealt with his own injury troubles this year, including recently, but he’s going to need to be ready to go as soon as the postseason rolls around.

5. Norman Powell: Powell stepping up wouldn’t be a new thing, as he’s been solid for Toronto all year long, averaging 16.0 points this season while shooting 39.6 percent from three. But if he can elevate his production even more in the playoffs, the Raptors would be getting a much-needed boost to their offense in the bubble.

4. Tyler Herro: The bucket-getting 2-guard has had a solid rookie season, but seems to be taking his play to an even higher level in the bubble, where he’s averaging 19.2 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.2 assists over his last six games while slashing fiery 53.9/39.4/100.0 shooting splits. If he can maintain that level of production, Miami will be a tough out in the postseason.

3. Mike Conley: The Jazz point guard came into this season with huge expectations, as many thought he’d give Utah the dynamic point guard they’d been missing. To this point, however, that hasn’t really been the case. The playoffs will be a good chance for Conley to live up to the hype, especially with Bojan Bogdanovic out for the rest of the year.

2. Al Horford: Without Ben Simmons available, Horford was reinstated into Philadelphia’s starting lineup this week, and he’s going to need to be in top form for the Sixers to make a deep playoff push without their star point guard.

1. Michael Porter: The young, exciting swingman was sensational in the bubble, averaging over 22 points and eight rebounds per game while shooting north of 42 percent from three. If Denver is going to make a run in the postseason, he’s going to need to keep up that level of production, especially with Gary Harris and Will Barton not showing signs of returning any time soon.

MAJOR RETURN: It looks like the Clippers will have their Sixth Man of the Year candidate big man Montrezl Harrell available for the playoffs, which was not a sure thing as recently as yesterday morning.

ANOTHER COACHING FIRING: After an uncomfortably long wait, the Bulls finally announced that they would, in fact, be firing head coach Jim Boylen after two seasons on the job. Boylen went 39-84 in that stretch, but even beyond that, had various public, odd slip-ups while in Chicago.

Kenny Atkinson, Ime Udoka and Adrian Griffin will be among the Bulls’ top candidates to take over the job.

FREE-AGENT FORESHADOWING? Without hinting as to who he could be thinking about, Jimmy Butler confidently told ESPN he expects another star to join him on the Heat.

TOP TARGET: After last year’s fireworks, the Nets will have a quieter offseason over the coming months. Nevertheless, one order of business they’ll need to take care of is re-signing Joe Harris, which GM Sean Marks called their top priority.

Harris was the league’s 157th-highest-paid player this year, a number that will undoubtedly rise as soon as he signs his next deal.

BARKLEY TO BARSTOOL? After making huge waves in the media world this week by hiring NFL legend Deion Sanders, Barstool Sports president Dave Portnoy has his eyes on picking up Charles Barkley next. We’ll see what TNT has to say about that.

BUBBLE MVP RANKINGS: With the seeding games wrapped up, we ranked the Top 10 bubble MVP candidates. No. 1 is pretty obvious.

FRESH POD: Myles Turner joined our own Michael Scotto this week for a new edition of the HoopsHype podcast. The two talked about a variety of topics, including Victor Oladipo free-agency rumors, life in the bubble and dating.

MEDIA FOLLOWINGS: We ranked popular NBA media Twitter accounts by which ones had the highest number of NBA players following them. Somewhat surprisingly, Woj did not come in first.

30 AWARD CANDIDATES: We chose the top candidate for an end-of-season award from every single team. Some are a bit more plausible than others.

WINNING PLAYERS: NBA teams are lucky in that landing a single star player can lift up their entire team. To take a deeper look at that, we ranked various players by how much they elevated their teams’ winning percentages while they were on the roster.

The HoopsHype Weekly: Top 10 takeaways from Week 2 of the bubble, including biggest surprise stars

Our biggest takeaways from Week 2 of the NBA bubble, including who we think are the biggest surprise stars so far of the season restart.

You can get this content every Saturday morning in your email inbox. Click here to subscribe to the HoopsHype Weekly newsletter.

NBA action continued to pick up this past week, with games getting more intense and individual performances only getting more impressive. Below, our 10 biggest takeaways from Week 2 of the Orlando bubble.

1. Devin Booker is turning the corner as a player. The Suns 2-guard was an All-Star for the first time this season, though he made it as a replacement for an injured Damian Lillard, and even so, it’s clear that he’s playing at an even higher level in the bubble. The Suns are the only undefeated team in Orlando and Booker has been the primary reason for that, averaging 28 points and 6.5 assists over four games. We wanted to see Booker do it when it matters, in important late-season games, and he’s doing just that.

2. The Lakers’ poor bubble offense is getting concerning. Through five games in Orlando, the Los Angeles Lakers have by far the worst offense of all the bubble teams, scoring just 95.7 points per 100 possessions. The next worst offense, which surprisingly belongs to the Raptors, is nearly a full seven points per 100 possessions better than that. Sure, LeBron James missed one of those games for L.A. but even so, this is getting a tad worrisome with the playoffs right around the corner. The Lakers are converting a bubble-worst 23.4 percent of their three-point looks.

3. There are a few surprise stars of the bubble going off. TJ Warren, Michael Porter Jr. and Gary Trent – three solid players who have taken their games to another level in Orlando. Warren ranks second in bubble scoring, trailing just James freaking Harden himself, at 33.8 points per game. Porter is 10th at 26.3 points per contest, which is especially interesting considering he scored 20-or-more points in a game just twice before getting to Orlando. And Trent is leading the bubble in three-point shooting (minimum: 25 attempts), knocking down an astronomical 62.9 percent of his outside looks through four games.

4. The West’s 8th seed still goes through Memphis. After a massively important (and dominant) win over the Thunder on Friday, the Grizzlies now have a great chance to at least force a play-in game for the final playoff spot in the West. Losing Jaren Jackson Jr. hurt, and they’re going to be putting a ton of pressure on their rookie phenom Ja Morant, but the Grizzlies are still in a decent position to be one of the final two teams fighting for a place in the postseason.

5. Now healthy, the Blazers are flat-out scary. Memphis’ biggest foe for the final playoff spot in the West is undoubtedly Portland, who is 3-1 in the bubble and boasts the fourth-best net rating in Orlando. With an MVP-level Damian Lillard, a stud backcourt mate in CJ McCollum, a quickly-developing Gary Trent Jr. knocking down threes, Carmelo Anthony stepping up in clutch situations and a now-healthy Jusuf Nurkic, Portland might be able to make some noise in the playoffs. For what it’s worth, Charles Barkley has them coming out of the West. We won’t go that far, but they’re certainly a team to keep an eye on.

6. Brooklyn has stepped up despite the odds being against them. We’ll eat crow here: We said last week that the Nets, without most of their top players in Orlando, might go winless in the bubble. We were way off, as the team, led by Caris LeVert, Jarrett Allen and Joe Harris, have stepped up big time, going 3-2 over their last five games and locking up their spot in the playoffs. Good on you, Nets. Jacque Vaughn is making a strong case to keep that head coaching gig next season.

7. The Heat need to get healthy, and soon. With Jimmy Butler and Goran Dragic sitting out back-to-back games and set to miss a third contest in a row today, Miami doesn’t have much time to get healthy before the playoffs. The Heat won’t go far without their best and third-best players for a long stretch.

8. How will Philadelphia do without Ben Simmons? With an injured Ben Simmons set to potentially miss a good chunk of time, it’ll be fascinating to see how the Sixers do with Joel Embiid the focal point of the team once again. In their one full game without the All-Star point guard, Philadelphia handled Orlando pretty easily, winning 108-101 behind 23 points and 13 rebounds for Embiid. A player who could see his role expand sans Simmons: Al Horford, who also did well against the Magic with 21 points and nine rebounds.

9. The Spurs will not go away. San Antonio, an afterthought this season restart, especially after the news that LaMarcus Aldridge wouldn’t be joining them in Orlando, is 3-2 in the bubble, two games behind Memphis and one behind Portland, and has a legitimate shot to make the playoffs. This might be one of Gregg Popovich’s more impressive recent coaching feats.

10. Indiana’s next few games are going to be hugely important for their future. That’s because if they suffer an unceremonious first-round defeat, even without Domantas Sabonis available, we could see them undergo a head coaching change this summer. More on that below.

A NEW HOT SEAT? According to Jeff Van Gundy and Zach Lowe, there’s scuttle going around the bubble that Nate McMillan’s job could be in jeopardy this offseason, a surprise considering his 181-137 record as the team’s head coach.

ARGENTINE STAR NBA-BOUND? There are strong indications out there that Facundo Campazzo, elite point guard for Real Madrid, could be headed to the NBA this offseason.

MAJOR LOSS IN PHILLY: It looks like the Sixers could be without star point guard Ben Simmons for a while after a knee injury forced him out of a mid-week game.

HIGH PRAISE: Gregg Popovich paid Nuggets big man Nikola Jokic a huge compliment this week, comparing the All-NBA center to Larry Bird and Moses Malone.

NEAR MISS: Look away, Knicks fans, because apparently, Kemba Walker was very interested in signing with New York last summer before Boston came along.

AWARD WINNERS: We polled multiple award-voters and collected other votes from media members who made theirs public to give ourselves a good idea of who this season’s major award-winners are going to be. It looks like Giannis is about to be an MVP and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season.

A LONG REIGN: Patrick McCaw has been an NBA champion three seasons running, giving him the second-longest championship reign since the 1960’s, trailing just Steve Kerr.

STRUGGLING LATE: We took a deep dive into Luka Doncic’s late-game struggles for the Dallas Mavericks this season.

STAY MELO: Although the media and NBA teams themselves counted out Carmelo Anthony prior to his resurgence in Portland, fellow players have always been in his corner.

LOOKING AHEAD: We haven’t even had the 2020 draft yet, but we decided to take a look ahead to 2021 anyway to see how the mock draft prognosticators think that class is going to shake out.