#MCM- Kristaps Porzingis, PF-C, New York Knicks
@Hoover__26 January 18
Kristaps Porzingis has had a bit of a wild ride to the NBA. He has gone from Latvian standout, to the most hated draft pick in his city, to the toast of New York in less than a year. However, through it all, he has managed to cement himself as one of the NBA’s finest young prospects and international players.
Porzingis was criticized before the draft for being “too scrawny” for a center. At 7’3”, he kind of invokes the image of other international bigs like Arvydas Sabonis, who were built like tree trunks. However, Porzingis has proved that he can out-rebound other bigs without bulking up too much (he’s averaging 10.1 rebounds per 36 minutes according to basketball-reference.com). Combined with his fine interior play is his outside shooting ability, which makes him one of the harder players to guard. Put a fast perimeter defender on him, and he will take you to the rim in only a few steps. Put a big, powerful defender on him and he can step out and knock down a three. Another thing that makes Porzingis difficult to defend is his fantastic free throw percentage. If you foul him on the inside, he has a pretty strong chance of converting the and-1.
Porzingis was the 25th power forward taken in espn.com drafts on average. That puts him below guys like David Lee, Ed Davis and Markieff Morris. However, Porzingis’ 13.9 points, 7.9 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game has him ranked fifth in fantasy points for power forwards.
While Porzingis has drawn many NBA comparisons, I think the most fitting one is Dirk Nowitzki. In Dirk’s second year (he played only 47 games as a rookie), he averaged 17.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 0.8 blocks on .461 FG% and .379 3P%. Porzingis is shooting .428 FG% and .328 3P% in his rookie year, not quite where Dirk was at. However, if you give Porzingis another year or two, he might me able to bump up his percentages and scoring while maintaining the rebounds and blocks. Then, we could be talking about someone on the same career arc as Dirk. FiveThirtyEight’s CARMELO stat system agrees with that, putting Dirk on the list of players that compare to Porzingis’ projected future. And, while Porzingis will continue to draw Zydrunas Ilgauskas comparisons (who was actually REALLY good in his day), I think we all agree that this week’s #MCM could be something really special in the NBA. Well, except for maybe this guy:
Porzingis was criticized before the draft for being “too scrawny” for a center. At 7’3”, he kind of invokes the image of other international bigs like Arvydas Sabonis, who were built like tree trunks. However, Porzingis has proved that he can out-rebound other bigs without bulking up too much (he’s averaging 10.1 rebounds per 36 minutes according to basketball-reference.com). Combined with his fine interior play is his outside shooting ability, which makes him one of the harder players to guard. Put a fast perimeter defender on him, and he will take you to the rim in only a few steps. Put a big, powerful defender on him and he can step out and knock down a three. Another thing that makes Porzingis difficult to defend is his fantastic free throw percentage. If you foul him on the inside, he has a pretty strong chance of converting the and-1.
Porzingis was the 25th power forward taken in espn.com drafts on average. That puts him below guys like David Lee, Ed Davis and Markieff Morris. However, Porzingis’ 13.9 points, 7.9 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game has him ranked fifth in fantasy points for power forwards.
While Porzingis has drawn many NBA comparisons, I think the most fitting one is Dirk Nowitzki. In Dirk’s second year (he played only 47 games as a rookie), he averaged 17.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 0.8 blocks on .461 FG% and .379 3P%. Porzingis is shooting .428 FG% and .328 3P% in his rookie year, not quite where Dirk was at. However, if you give Porzingis another year or two, he might me able to bump up his percentages and scoring while maintaining the rebounds and blocks. Then, we could be talking about someone on the same career arc as Dirk. FiveThirtyEight’s CARMELO stat system agrees with that, putting Dirk on the list of players that compare to Porzingis’ projected future. And, while Porzingis will continue to draw Zydrunas Ilgauskas comparisons (who was actually REALLY good in his day), I think we all agree that this week’s #MCM could be something really special in the NBA. Well, except for maybe this guy: