As Porzingis walked into the gym, he was immediately greeted by Kyle Lowry, who had trained with Porzingis last summer at Impact. “Everybody’s coming to see you,” Lowry said. “I told them last year you would be a top-six pick. Make me look good.”
We’ll see how solid a talent evaluator Lowry is. With representatives from the top five teams in the NBA draft in attendance, it was the first time many top execs would be able to draw a direct comparison between Porzingis and Turner, a player of similar size and ability who was ESPN’s no. 2 recruit behind Jahlil Okafor in last year’s high school senior class. But drills are run in isolation; whatever competitive tension the players felt was internal. It was 50 minutes to give guys like Flip Saunders, Phil Jackson, and Stan Van Gundy anecdotal knowledge of Porzingis, to help them confirm (or reject), with their own eyes, what their international scouts have been telling them for the past year.
The murmurs of Porzingis finding his way up the big boards of the top three teams predated his pro day, but they erupted into frenzy once video of the workouts surfaced. Lakers at no. 2? Sixers at no. 3? Does he actually have a case for no. 1?
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/notalleuros-the-perfect-storm-behind-kristaps-porzingiss-rise/
