- 85,813
- 112,234
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2010
NBA DRAFT WATCH: Bobby Portis
Left behind by his one-and-done peers at bigger programs, the 6'11 big man is the SEC’s Player of the Year — erasing many of the doubts.
Left behind by his one-and-done peers at bigger programs, the 6'11 big man is the SEC’s Player of the Year — erasing many of the doubts.
Coming out of high school, Bobby Portis was as highly regarded as fellow big men Aaron Gordon, Noah Vonleh, Julius Randle and Jabari Parker. They were all top ten players who played at the McDonald’s All-American Game and the Nike Hoop Summit, the two biggest events on the high-school all-star circuit. But while the others went to the most high-profile programs in the country—Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky and Duke—Portis elected to stay close to home at Arkansas, a school which hadn’t played in the NCAA Tournament since 2009, and hadn’t produced a first-round pick since 2007. As a result, Portis slipped off the national radar playing for an NIT-bound team, while his peers went on to be one-and-done lottery picks.
Portis has made up for lost time as a sophomore in a BIG way, carrying Arkansas to a 24–7 record and getting the program back into the Top 25. Portis, not any of the Kentucky players, was the SEC Player of the Year. He averaged 17.8 points, 8.7 rebounds, 1.5 blocks and 1.1 assists a game on 56.3% shooting.
And his advanced statistics are just as good:
Now, Portis comes off one of his best games of the season. In an 81–78 loss to LSU on Saturday, he finished with 24 points, 15 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocks on 17 shots. LSU didn’t have Jordan Mickey, but they still had plenty of size to throw at Portis. Jarrell Martin is listed at 6'10 245, but he had absolutely no answer for Portis on the block:
At 6'11, 240 with a 7'1 wingspan, Portis has an excellent combination of size, speed and athleticism. He has a big body and quick feet and he knows how to use it around the rim:
LSU simply couldn’t keep him off the glass. Portis is a very aggressive big man who can rebound out of his zone and he has the touch to score almost every time he gets a put-back:
The only thing LSU could really do was send help. But even, then Portis had an answer, as he’s significantly improved this season is as a passer, developing a good feel for the game and a sense of when to kick the ball out:
In this sequence, LSU sends a double when Portis is operating out of the mid-post 15+ feet from the basket. He accepts the double team, surveys the floor, and finds the cutter:
What really excites NBA scouts about Portis, though, is his ability to stretch the defense and make them pay for leaving him open anywhere on the floor.
Portis is a career 74.2% FT shooter at the NCAA level, a good indication that he has a repeatable shooting stroke and good touch outside of the paint, something which you don’t see all that often in a 20year old with his type of size.
Here’s a chart showing how all the starting 4's and 5's in the NBA compare to Portis in terms of height vs. free-throw percentage:
Probably the most intriguing part of Portis’ game is the ever-increasing range on his jumper — he is 20–59 from beyond the arc this season. While he is probably years away from being a consistent NBA three-point shooter, if he can add that to his game by the time he is in his mid 20's, there’s no telling how effective he could become. A guy with Portis’ size, athleticism and shooting ability is pretty much the prototypical modern-day NBA big man, especially as more teams begin following the model of the Atlanta Hawks, who stretch out the defense and play five shooters the entire game.
That type of spread offense only works, though, if your shooting big men can play defense like Al Horford and Paul Millsap. Portis, like many big-time scorers his age, has a lot of work to do on that side of the floor, but the physical ability to defend is certainly there. He moves his feet really well for a guy with his size. Here he is switching on the pick-and-roll and hounding the LSU guard into a tough runner in the lane:
Jarrell Martin has made a killing in the SEC (17 points a game on 52% shooting as a sophomore) taking bigger defenders off the dribble, but he had a lot of trouble scoring on Portis when they were matched up 1-on-1:
For as good as he can look at times, though, Portis’ defensive numbers aren’t all that great for a player with his physical ability. Some of that is scheme, as the Razorbacks play a full-court press that wears out them, and allows for a lot of easy run-outs. And some of it comes from the team’s desire to protect Portis from foul trouble, as they really can’t afford to keep him out of the game for too long.
Still, the NBA teams who drafts Portis will be doing so for his offense, and hoping the defense comes along later:
More immediately, however, NBA teams will need to figure out is whether to play Portis as a small-ball 5 or a more traditional 4. While he has shown the ability to protect the rim, he only has a 7'1.5 wingspan, so putting his arms straight in the air isn’t that great a deterrent against NBA-caliber front-court players like Martin:
Ideally, Portis’ ability to stretch the floor will allow him to be paired with a shot-blocking defensive 5 at the next level. He should be able to serve as a small-ball 5 who wants to spread the floor on a second unit, but that may not be something his team wants to try full-time until much later in his career. In that respect, his developmental track could resemble guys like Horford and Chris Bosh, two prototypical 4's who have become undersized 5's in the modern NBA. That’s heady company to put any college player in, to be sure, but the numbers back it up.
Here’s how Portis’ per-40 minute numbers compare with Bosh and Horford in their last seasons of college:
- Portis (sophomore): 24.2 points, 11.8 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 1.3 steals and 2.1 blocks on 56.3% shooting
- Bosh (freshman): 20.2 points, 11.6 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 1.3 steals and 2.8 blocks on 56.0% shooting
- Horford (junior): 19.0 points, 13.6 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.1 steals and 2.8 blocks on 60.8% shooting
You haven’t heard much about Portis because he plays for an under-the-radar school which isn’t on national TV very often (in a conference known more for football than basketball). Nevertheless, he is as talented as any big man in the country and he will present a huge match-up problem for whoever draws Arkansas in the NCAA Tournament. If he can maintain his production on the biggest stage of the sport, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he ended up joining Gordon, Vonleh, Parker and Randle as a lottery pick.
The difference between Portis and a guy like Randle, whom he faced off against twice as a freshmen in SEC play, is that he’s the only NBA prospect on his team. It’s all on him. For as well as he played against LSU, Arkansas still lost. Most of the other elite big men in the country hail from programs that pair them with NBA-caliber guards.
No matter what happens to Arkansas in the Big Dance, Portis will almost certainly declare for the NBA Draft because there is nothing more for him to prove at the collegiate level.
Case in point: at a game in November where Portis trounced a stout SMU front-line in their own gym, SMU coach Larry Brown summed it up well afterwards: “That kid [Bobby] Portis is a pretty damn good player. He can step outside and post-up. He’s going to be playing somewhere else pretty soon.”
Last edited:
damn has Reggie Jackson been that bad? I haven't seen any of the Pistons games.
