How No. 4 pick Kristaps Porzingis is making the Knicks look wise … – CBS Sports – CBSSports.com
LAS VEGAS — What we don’t know about a draft prospect is what causes us to both doubt the player and talk ourselves into their NBA potential. By having very little information to base our opinions on, it generally forces us to go out on a limb in regards to what the prospect will become. We just end up hoping that the limb is strong enough to support us along with the burden of choosing whether or not to buy in on a prospect.
There wasn’t a ton of information on Latvian big man Kristaps Porzingis heading into the draft. We knew he was incredibly tall with long arms and a skinny frame. We knew he had individual workouts showing off an incredible skill set for a big man so young. We knew there were comparisons being drawn to the infamous Yi Jianlin vs. a chair workout because that’s where snark and being in the dark left us.
For those paid to scout the teenager’s game over the last couple years, there were fewer doubts than the rest of us, who were left to our own devices. The layperson can watch small highlight mixtapes on YouTube and grab our own general scouting profiles, but you can make literally anybody look good with one of those. NBA scouts saw a unique situation for Sevilla in the Spanish League in which they were one of the rare teams that played their young international prospects significant minutes.
Sevilla had three highly touted prospects on their roster. Porzingis, Guillermo Hernangomze (35th pick in 2015) and Nikola Radicevic (57th pick in 2015) finished third, sixth and fourth, respectively in minutes played last season. More often than not, international clubs will seemingly lower the value of their young players in the draft by not playing them all that much and having big buyouts in their contracts to prevent them from leaving for the NBA so early. But with Sevilla, they had some injuries and decided all three young players would get significant time. All three of the prospects produced.
“You don’t know how these guys are going to be in the NBA,” a Western Conference scout said, “but you have a pretty good idea of what they can and can’t do on a court. I’m not sure there’s much Kristaps will struggle with in the NBA, as long as he gets stronger. That’s the only question about him, but that’s how it is with most teenagers heading into the NBA.
“We scouted him a lot, and since he was one of the rare young international guys who got to play, you’re able to cast a wider net than normal on what he can do.”
When the New York Knicks took Porzingis with the fourth pick in this year’s draft, predictably he found himself getting booed by Knicks fans in the building. There was fear that Phil Jackson and company got sucked into the hype of a good workout or the smoke and mirrors of a foreign player being the next big thing. Was he going to be strong enough? Was he just going to be another Andrea Bargnani — or even worse a Yi Jianlin — out there? Was he going to be able to handle the pressure of being a top 5 pick trying to make it under the scrutiny of playing in New York?
As he gets his first appetizer of NBA action in the Las Vegas Summer League, Porzingis has found himself having cheers rained down on him instead of the boos he heard just weeks ago. Fans are pining for him to get more minutes and get the ball in scoring situations. Any time he receives a pass on the perimeter, gets into a triple-threat position and gives a half-hearted shot fake before making the next pass and cut in the Triangle, a collective breath hold happens in the crowd. They want him to shoot the ball and they want to keep seeing what he has to offer.
“I hope so,” Porzingis answered about the fans loving him following his first Summer League game in which he scored 12 points in 18 minutes. “Finally they saw me play out there, so hopefully some of those booing fans are now cheering for me.”
In limited Summer League minutes, Porzingis has shot 60 percent from the field, going 3-of-5 in each game. He’s averaged 10 points in 19.3 minutes with three rebounds and a couple of blocks. You can see him getting pushed around and adapting to using his length and verticality with each possession. But he shows poise within the construct of what the summer team is being asked to do on the court. He doesn’t seem concerned with earning the favor of the fans and media; he mostly just looks to make the right play in each possession as he learns what does and doesn’t work.
“I was really calm,” Porzingis said about his first game experience in Las Vegas. “At one moment, I caught myself. I was thinking about the game and I was a little nervous. I was like ‘chill out’ and then I was calm. I went out there and just played how I play.”
How he plays is that of a versatile, new era post player. His jumper has looked incredibly smooth and polished for such a young big man. Porzingis loves to use the glass, is comfortable shooting off the dribble and has been able to draw a lot of free-throw opportunities. For such a slender big man, he sets solid screens to create space for his guards. And his footwork — both with and without the ball — shows much more fluidity than we’re used to seeing from young big guys just trying not to trip over their own feet.
“Obviously, he has to fill out,” a scout told me about Porzingis. “But what 19-year-old player hasn’t needed to work on his body? It’s kind of a given because so few players come into the NBA with an NBA body. That’s something they work toward. Give me a big man who has [Porzingis’] skills and just needs to get stronger. You can turn that type of guy into a star way easier than a guy with a cut frame and who isn’t comfortable with the ball in his hands.”
Porzingis knows he has to get stronger, but doesn’t have a set goal in mind. Whether that’s adding 10, 15, 20 or even 30 pounds to his slight frame, he wants to make sure he feels good at the target weight. If he doesn’t, he wants to adjust it to maximize his effectiveness at a new size for him. That will be part of the learning process for him. He wants to make sure he has the same quickness that makes him so effective, and doesn’t appear to be in a rush to just add weight recklessly to prevent getting bullied a bit inside.
“I think you can see out there I’m fighting with the guys even though they’re 10 or 15 pounds heavier than me,” Porzingis said. “I don’t have a hard problem with contact.”
Absorbing the contact and being able to stand his ground and hold his position enough to allow his reach to take over is huge. It’s something he’s struggled with against bigger guys so far, but it’s something he’s beating with timing how he uses his reach. The timing finds itself combining with Porzingis’ wingspan; that leads to blocked shots that make you believe he’ll be just fine defensively, as opposed to the worst-case scenario comparisons he’s received.
Against another top big-man prospect in Philadelphia 76ers rookie Jahlil Okafor, Porzingis was giving up a lot of size to a more polished scorer inside. He had to adjust to how he could defend Okafor by fronting the Sixers center and trying to make it harder for him to receive passes in good position. It wasn’t an adjustment from the coaching staff or a teammate. It was just something Porzingis decided to do because he wanted to bother Okafor with this length.
“I still have trouble calling the defense on the screens,” Porzingis admitted. “I try to remember the calls and everything. Still have trouble with that, but I just try to be as aggressive as I can.”
It’s still quite early in the process of him becoming an NBA player, but he’s handling the adaption to this new lifestyle quite well. He gets the rabid desire of Knicks fans to have something real to cheer for once again. He wants himself and fellow rookie teammate Jerian Grant to be able to come in and contribute immediately in a way that gives hope to the city of New York about its basketball team.
His personality coming through helps break the stereotype of what an international big man is. He says that at 7’3″ he can’t just hide from being himself. That’s where the confidence people rave about with him comes through because he’s not necessarily hiding from the responsibility of being such a high draft pick in the biggest market. It’s that kind of attitude that will help him take the punches of being a rookie in this league and continue to develop into the player he’s supposed to be — the player the Knicks expected him to be when they drafted him.
That player is paramount to the future of the Knicks becoming a real team once again for a long period of time. In the Summer League environment, you can be tricked into the promise of a bright future by seeing production in a semi-chaotic basketball situation. For Porzingis, you’re just seeing a smart basketball player remain comfortable on the court, no matter where the court is or what the competition is in front of him.
We’re getting a little more information day by day with Porzingis and starting to understand why the Knicks did what they did on draft night. It no longer looks like such a weak limb to stand on if you believe Porzingis was the right guy for them.
The Knicks have an incredible opportunity with Kristaps Porzingis. (USATSI)
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