bwgood77 wrote:Mr Puddles wrote:As well as Michael Porter Jr scoring double digits on a stacked Nuggets team so we can rehash the 'Is Ben Simmons really a rookie' debate.
If Porter Jr ever lives up to that #1 or even top 5 ranking in that class he had before that season....the Nuggets are going to be crazy good.
Not hating on Porter (still like him as a prospect) but I feel like it's not great to start with his or anyone else's NBA potential by their HS rating. A lot of top HS guys end up being nothing special in the NCAA (your Shabazz Muhammads and Cliff Alexanders and Trevon Duvals) and had only stood out among 16 year olds before others matured; and Porter already showed that he wasn't able to impose his will in the NCAA and needed his skills to be top notch for him to succeed. (He was bad in college, though injured). He's not like many top guys who are so big, strong, quick, etc that they just need to develop okay to be pretty good--he's skinny, has average NBA athleticism, and solid height/length but nothing special, and based on that stuff alone he was far from a top pick.
The main reason why I'm skeptical now is that the #1 reason top HS prospects don't make that leap because the gap between the skills the NBA requires you to execute every night and what you can get away with in HS games is massive; we usually get a year in the NCAA to help us guess how real those things are (that's how Nassir Little goes from top-3 to end of the 1st rd, and Cam Reddish goes from #1 overall to shaky lotto pick); tons and tons of players just aren't able to make that skill leap, and a player with medium-good abilities needs them to be good in the NBA. I think Porter can shoot and cut just fine, but he's going to need be awesome at those things to be good in the NBA. If he's just average at them (which is really hard to be) then he's an okay offensive player who doesn't bring much in other areas. And that's all dependent on him staying healthy too!
