Draft 2013: Otto Porter

I can tackle the rest of the SFs in the next article, but I felt Otto Porter deserved his own piece. He’s clearly the best SF in the 2013 draft. The mocks have had him in the top 5 for most of the year.  He led an otherwise unimpressive bunch of Hoyas through a tough Big East to a #2 seed, before bowing out of the tournament early, upset by Florida Gulf Coast. Porter is an all-around SF and those types generally fare pretty well as pros. This seems to be the position more than any other where flashing multiple skills at the college level translates best to NBA success and Otto Porter displayed every skill necessary.

Here is a quick look at Otto Porter’s numbers. First is his freshman year, followed by a month-by-month breakdown of his sophomore year:

Otto Porter	2PP	3PP	P40	R40	ASB40	A/TO
Freshman	611	226	13.2	9.3	4.7	1.3
Nov-Dec	532	435	16.8	9.8	8.8	2.7
January	540	462	20.5	9.1	4.6	0.6
February	509	500	22.9	8.8	5.5	3.4
March	412	261	17.2	7.5	6.5	2.8

These are pretty solid prospect numbers. Porter was always an efficient scorer, at least until a bad slump in his 6 March games. He’s also a solid rebounder, a good passer and defender. He was one of only a handful of college SFs with a S40 over 2.0. The only question I would have is whether his poor shooting in March is something more than a cold streak.

Here’s a look at other players in Porter’s class. I looked for players who topped .500 2PP, 18.5 P40, 8.0 R40, 6.0 ASB40 and showed some ability to hit a 3-pointer. I used a .300 percentage for the last one, but let Marion in with his .299.

Player	2PP	3PP	P40	R40	ASB40	A/TO
Paul Pierce	560	339	26.9	8.8	6.3	0.9
Shawn Marion	573	299	22.8	11.3	6.8	0.9
Robert Horry	519	350	18.7	10.0	8.9	0.9
Danny Granger	563	433	25.1	11.8	8.6	1.0
Danny Manning	593	346	28.2	10.2	6.6	0.7
Donyell Marshall	567	311	29.5	10.4	7.2	0.6
Josh Howard	558	329	20.3	11.3	6.7	1.0
Rodney Rogers	648	380	25.2	10.5	6.2	1.2
Stacey Augmon	619	469	21.8	9.6	8.7	2.0
Lionel Simmons	517	477	27.8	11.7	8.0	1.3
Ryan Bowen	607	533	21.0	12.7	7.9	1.1
Ed O’Bannon	571	433	23.8	9.7	6.1	1.0
Gerald Glass	565	376	31.4	9.5	6.5	0.7
Terence Morris	604	355	20.9	9.7	7.3	0.8
Otto Porter	504	422	19.2	8.9	6.5	1.8

This is a pretty nice list to be on. There’s a nice mix of all-stars, solid journeymen and never-weres. What makes Porter’s year less impressive is that most of this group scored more often and efficiently than him. Now might be a good time for a quick tangent to point out that the pace of college ball has slowed in the last 20 years. The numbers of all these players other than Morris and Granger were posted in the 90s. The per40 numbers I used, other than Porter’s, are all raw numbers with no pace adjustment. My guess would be that most or of the comps on the list are somewhat bloated compared to today’s numbers because of pace. I doubt an adjustment for era would push Porter’s P40 into the 22-23 range, but I feel this trend is worth pointing out. Perhaps my project this summer will be to clean my files up a little to better reflect modern times. But this is what I have to go with now.

Back to the table, with the exception of Morris and Rogers, who were both sophomores, all the players on this list were juniors or seniors. This was Porter’s first season as the lead scorer on his team and he was in that role only starting in January. His P40 steadily improved as the year went on until the slump in March. For that reason I feel the low P40 number isn’t a huge concern.  There are a couple of other factors that could have suppressed Porter’s numbers some.

The first and most important factor about Porter’s season is his Georgetown team lost Greg Whittington to academic ineligibility after a loss to Pitt on 1/8. Whittington was the Hoya’s 2^nd-leading scorer behind Porter at the time. Here is a look at Porter’s numbers pre- and post-Whiittington’s departure:

Otto Porter	2PP	3PP	P40	R40	ASB40	A/TO
With Whittington	516	393	15.9	8.9	7.7	2.3
W/O Whittington	497	432	21.1	8.9	5.7	1.6

The Hoyas actually played better after Whittington departed, going 10-3 in games with him and 15-4 after he left. The 15-4 mark was posted entirely in Big East play, so it really is much more impressive. Most impressive is that Porter adjusted his game and took on a larger scoring load and the team actually benefitted as a result. The improvement Porter made on the offensive end is even more impressive, considering they were put up during the Big East conference regular season. The bulk of the numbers posted with Whittington were posted during the pre-season against inferior competition. What’s impressive here is that when an important player left the team, Porter was able to step up, change his game and lead the Hoyas on a 15-2 run from that point. That run included 5 wins over top 20 opponents.

The other factor to consider with Porter and his stats is that a couple of recent Georgetown players have outperformed their stats as NBA players. Roy Hibbert and Greg Monroe have both become NBA standouts, playing beyond what their college numbers and draft positions projected. Both players were low-volume scorers while at Georgetown with some nice numbers. While I’m not quite ready to call John Thompson III the Ben Howland of the Big East, the fact is Georgetown plays a balanced offense that probably suppresses the stats of some of the better NBA prospects. This is what was happening before Whittington’s departure. Once Whittington left, the team needed for Porter to take on a larger load offensively and he handled it great.

Otto Porter is the type of player I like as a SF prospect. As college SFs go he’s a good rebounder and defender. He’s a great passer. His scoring has been up-and-down, but there is evidence that his offensive numbers were suppressed. During the non-conference schedule where prospects often fatten up their numbers against weaker competition, Porter was playing Georgetown’s shareball with Whittington. Unlike other prospect he never got the chance to fatten up his numbers against inferior competition.

The only thing that concerns me about Otto Porter as a prospect is how well he’ll score in the NBA. This can be a tough call with a prospect like Porter who has only a couple of months of scoring at a level SF prospects need to. There are extenuating circumstances that suggest he’s better than his offensive stats. But how well he’ll be able to score is still something of a guessing game. I’d certainly like him more as a prospect if he played as well for a full season as he did in January and February.

At the very least I feel he’ll be a smart, team-first player like Shane Battier. He fits that profile well. As a college player he was a good defender, rebounder and 3-point shooter who commits few turnovers and did whatever was necessary to help the team win. That in itself is a player worthy of a top 5 pick. The question is whether he can also score at a high enough level to become one of the best SFs in the game. I feel there’s at least a decent chance he’ll get there and for that reason I would make Porter the #2 prospect in the 2013 draft behind Nerlens Noel.