Les Schwab Invitational: Meet Michael Porter Jr. and Marvin Bagley
By Cole Zwicker
If you’re an aspiring scout or enjoy watching highly competitive and enjoyable high school basketball infused with star-laden talent, the annual Les Schwab Invitational held in late December at Liberty High School in Hillsboro, Oregon is a must attend. The event, spearheaded by event coordinator Reggie Walker, is wonderfully executed, bringing in select high schools from around the nation to compete with local high schools from the greater Portland area.
This year, the national teams ventured from afar, the Gonzaga Eagles from Washington D.C., and from neighboring states, the Garfield Bulldogs and Nathan Hale Raiders from Seattle, Washington, and the Sierra Canyon Trailblazers from Chatsworth, California. It’s rare to see such a diverse group of elite high school programs gathered in one place.
While the national draw is certainly compelling, the event has a distinct local flair, where you can’t help but subjectively root for the local teams and players to hold their own against the national giants. Perhaps no one channeled this sentiment in a microcosm more than local Clackamas High School’s Elijah Gonzales, who stands 5-foot-9 on a good day The diminutive Portland State commit was the only local to make the all-tournament team, averaging 27.3 points, 6.0 assists and a tournament-leading 3.0 steals a game. His ruthless leadership, cerebral floor game, dynamic burst and fearlessness attacking the paint routinely captivated the audience. Gonzales isn’t on the NBA radar, but he’s a hell of lead guard and will be an enjoyable under-the-radar follow in the future. Gaining access to a player like Gonzales is one of the ancillary benefits of Les Schwab.
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Of course, most of the attention in the tournament centers around the elite NBA prospects on the national teams. Past event iterations have seen multiple top-5 picks in the NBA draft, such as Ben Simmons, Jaylen Brown, Jahlil Okafor and Aaron Gordon, as well as a surefire future top-5 pick in Markelle Fultz. The opportunity to see these star-caliber players face off against one another is truly unique, and isn’t replicated in most environments.
This year, the focus was on two players specifically — Michael Porter Jr. from Nathan Hale and Marvin Bagley from Sierra Canyon. Porter Jr., the Washington Husky commit, is currently ranked No. 2 in RSCI, as well as No. 2 in the ESPN recruiting database for the 2017 high school class. Coached by former NBA standout Brandon Roy, whose presence back in Portland was a dynamic story line in itself, it’s safe to say Porter Jr. is going to benefit from that tutelage. Bagley, still a junior, is the no. 1 overall player in the 2018 high school class in the ESPN recruiting database.
These two players went mano-a-mano in the championship game (because of course they did), providing us not only a thrilling 40 minutes of basketball where Porter Jr.’s Raiders edged out Bagley’s Trailblazers 67-65, but a unique glimpse at two athletic marvels. Simply put, it was the best high school basketball game I’ve ever seen. To set the stage for this showdown, especially if you didn’t see Porter Jr. in the U18 tournament this summer, the context of each player is necessary.
Porter Jr., a 6-foot-10 wing whose size gives him future NBA power forward capability, is an elite NBA caliber athlete. We’re not just talking run-and-jump vertical pop, but legit functional athleticism. One of the things I like to do scouting high school basketball especially is to stand on the floor behind the basket to get a general sense of build and athleticism before noting anything else. Porter Jr. jumps off the page when you stand on his level. He has a developed upper-body that looks capable of adding legit strength with relatively wide shoulders.
From a coordination standpoint he effortlessly glides on the court, with a unique ability to convert speed to incredible explosiveness and power as a finisher, where he operates with ease. He’s both a fluid, coordinated athlete, and an explosive leaper, which is not a combination you find with his frame. He doesn’t have outlier length (reportedly a 7-foot-1 wingspan), but when paired with his athleticism he has the full size, tools, athleticism, and feel package teams look for. You see his functional athleticism really pop on the elevation he gets on his shot, his ability to sky for rebounds and in his open court agility navigating his way to the basket with tremendous body control on the move.
I’ve seen Porter Jr. in person before, living 15 minutes away from his high school, but the competition level wasn’t there to really draw any legitimate takeaways. He was being fronted at times by sub 6-foot players, and it looked more like a comical scene from Space Jam than actual basketball. From the sample size I’ve seen, Porter Jr. seems like a decent bet to shoot it respectably, possessing the aforementioned lift to get his shot off in traffic undisturbed at high volume (7.8 3-point attempts per game at Les Schwab), deep range and the ability to shoot off the dribble in contorting his body to make difficult shots. He made seven 3s in the local game I saw, and most of those were of the dribble-pull-up variety, a more difficult shot than spotting up. He doesn’t have the quickest release, but he has soft touch and his elevation gives him a distinct advantage shooting over players.
Outside of shooting, Porter Jr. can handle fluidly in the open court and in straight lines, and does a decent job keeping his head up to find open teammates. It’s hard to assess his ability to create on-on-one in NBA creation settings such as in pick-and-rolls when he faces athletes who he can’t just blow by (we’ll get to this), and ball-skills in this setting are definitely something to monitor moving forward. He creates events defensively, harassing passing lanes with his size and has the range to protect the rim. You really see his quickness and lateral agility getting into bigger players such as Bagley.
At 6-foot-11 and 221 pounds, Bagley is a physical specimen for a 17-year-old. You don’t find players his size often who, similar to Porter, have fluid, functional athleticism to pair with explosive bounce. Bagley is so damn quick off the floor, armed with elite bounce even from a stand-still. He’s just a pogo-stick around the basket, who can sky for rebounds noticeably above the rim without any kind of momentum, and catch lob passes with a phenomenal catch radius. That same elevation is seen in his offensive game around the rim, where Bagley can just elevate right over probably 95 percent of the opposition he faces inside. Few players on this level of play can harass the height of which Bagley gets to at the apex of his jump hook or running hook on the move. He doesn’t need to create space to get interior shots off. He can simply jump right over you, and he has legitimate touch to convert.
The allure with Bagley also centers around his skill floor. Bagley has a fluid handle for a player his size, and is capable of blowing by less mobile bigs in the face-up game. He also shows a workable jump shot from the perimeter, although he rarely needs to resort to it on the high school level, and he has some vision as a passer. Projecting his NBA future at this juncture in terms of position is a bit more hazy than Porter. Bagley doesn’t have the length (reported near 7-foot-1 wingspan) or sturdy frame (221 pounds without imposing shoulders) to project him as a full-time 5, where his mobility and skill would gain him a considerable advantage. He has the height at almost 6-foot-11 to play there situationally, but right now he’s a cleaner fit at the 4. He’ll need to refine his perimeter shooting to be a stretch-threat, but he has an intriguing baseline skill-set as a face-up player, and when paired with his inside game to elevate over players and attack mismatches in the post and elite ability to slide his feet laterally in space as well as protect the rim, he has multi-dimensional 4 ability.
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After all this build-up you probably expected Porter Jr. and Bagley to have guarded each other over the course of the championship game. Alas, that wasn’t the case. Each team had a unique makeup in possessing two big men each with considerable physical talent. Perhaps oversimplifying the high school game, size wins. If you have a legitimate big man, few teams are going to be able to counter that. If you have two, well, basically no one is. The Trailblazers have 6-foot-8, 240 pound senior man-child Cody Riley, a UCLA commit, to pair with Bagley, who from a frame perspective looks like Julius Randle (he’s not the same caliber of athlete, but has that bullish strength). Riley was a bull in a china shop for most of the tournament, taking apart opposing front lines with ease with his body and finishing acumen inside.
The Raiders countered with 6-foot-9, 225 pound junior Jontay Porter, Michael’s brother and similarly a Washington commit. While he doesn’t have anything near his brother’s athleticism, Jontay has the frame and coordination to match up with opposing brutes inside. He took J’Raan Brooks, an all-tournament team member on Garfield high school, to the woodshed in the semifinal. With this 2-on-2 big setup, each side finally met its match from a size and athleticism standpoint.
From the outset, the matchups were Porter Jr. checking Riley and Porter checking Bagley, and vice versa. On one instance in the first half, Porter Jr. got caught on Bagley under the hoop in a defensive rebounding situation. Bagley beat Porter Jr. to the apex on the glass, dislodged him and dunked on him, showcasing Bagley’s relentlessness and vertical pop on the glass. It seemed early the Raiders would be unable to contain the Trailblazers inside in a man situation, and to take advantage of the latter’s lack of floor-spacing, the former switched to a zone defense.
Porter Jr. was able to consistently use his quickness advantage over Riley when he was aggressive as a slasher, having too much speed for the less mobile Riley to contain off the dribble, especially in open court settings. The Trailblazers made an adjustment of their own, putting 6-foot-3 junior and sturdily built wing Adam Seiko on Porter, a curious move given the size difference. The switch ended up being illuminating, as Seiko really got into Porter Jr.’s body, cutting off his operational space to handle the ball. Porter Jr. could still elevate over Seiko to shoot, which he did frequently in the third quarter especially, but he couldn’t just blow-by him off the dribble, which led to frequent settling. Seiko and company also fronted Porter Jr. inside when he tried to post and utilize his size advantage, and they really neutralized Porter Jr. in the third quarter in route to building a 13-point lead. Porter Jr.’s lack of ability to create space off the dribble in this situation against a faster player who had the athleticism to contain his dribble drives is something to monitor in alignment with the ball-skills point moving forward.
On the other side of the floor, Bagley beat Porter (Jontay) numerous times when he had the space to attack. Bagley’s combination of mobility and elevation was too much for Porter at times, as he got off fluid running hooks and reverses that Porter just could not contest. There was one play when Bagley attacked Porter’s body on the move and could not finish through contact, which was noticeable.
In the fourth quarter, Porter Jr. switched onto Bagley for a few possessions down the stretch, and really applied ball pressure getting into Bagley’s body. Bagley did not have the handle or strength to really counter Porter Jr.’s superior lateral athleticism and mobility, and struggled to generate offense in that setting. Porter Jr. ending up forcing a Bagley offensive foul, walling off Bagley’s drive leading to a push off, and generated a crucial fourth quarter steal which resulted in a transition finish with 17 seconds left. Porter Jr. then forced Bagley into another turnover on the sideline, which sealed the win.
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Overall, both players look like the real deal and their respective rankings are worthy of the hype. Porter Jr. averaged 32 points, 16.8 rebounds, and 4.8 assists at the event, including 27 points, 15 rebounds, five steals and four assists in the final. Bagley countered averaging 23 points and 10 rebounds through four games, finishing with about his average with 22 points and 10 rebounds in the final in route to winning tournament MVP honors (which was very curious). The matchup illuminated each player’s strengths and weaknesses operating against physical and athletic talent in their same stratosphere.
Porter Jr. looks like a legitimate threat to challenge designed-in-a-lab-to-play-basketball, 7-foot unicorn DeAndre Ayton for the no. 1 overall pick in the 2018 draft, especially with green flag character and work ethic under the tutelage of a former NBA star, whereas Bagley could easily go first overall in 2019. Rarely do you get to see highly-regarded prospects match up in this fashion. I would highly recommend a trip to Hillsboro next December.