Nylon Calculus Rookie Review: What did the Cavaliers see from Kevin Porter Jr.?

Even if the NBA regular season is canceled, we’ve seen enough to start assessing the first seasons of notable rookies. What did the Cleveland Cavaliers see from Kevin Porter Jr.?

It was a muddled season for the Cavaliers, even before the coronavirus interruption — a mismatched roster of young players and veterans, endless trade rumors that didn’t really manifest into anything and plenty of losing. From the center of that morass, Kevin Porter Jr. was a relative bright spot.

The 6-foot-4 guard, taken with the last pick in the first round, averaged 10.0 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game, mostly off the bench. And, at times, he outshone rookie teammate Darius Garland, who was taken with the No. 6 pick. The Cavaliers have plenty to figure out in their ongoing rebuild, but has Porter proven he’s an essential piece?

What did we expect?

Porter was a bit of a mystery as a draft prospect. He put some extremely impressive stretches on film, showing off his handle, shooting and creation ability. But he also appeared in just 21 games for USC, missing time because of injury and a suspension for conduct issues. In a scouting report from last March, Trevor Magnotti focused in on both Porter’s upside and how much subtle tweaking it would take for him to fully realize it:

"“For Porter to hit his ceiling, he can’t just score points — he has to create value for his team’s offense through that scoring, which comes from passing, decision-making, and shot selection. Porter isn’t very strong in any of those areas at this point. Couple that with his lack of off-ball defensive fundamentals, and it’s very easy to see a path to a situation where Porter peaks as a bench scorer who can’t be very useful on a good team, like a Gerald Green type.”"

Magnotti talked at length later in the scouting report about how much time Porter might take to develop. The implication is that we might see brief flashes of brilliance in his rookie season but refinement is what would ultimately determine his value, and any sign of that would be the most important evidence.

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What did we get?

As you would expect, Porter’s data point are all over the map. He started slowly and was shooting 38.7 percent from the field and 21.1 percent on 3-pointers at the end of November.

He slowly picked up steam though and had a string of seven straight games in double figures in late January and early February, which seemed to be a turning point with him putting things together. Even after that streak ended, there were explosions that continued to feed residual optimism — like his 30-point game against the Miami Heat just two weeks before the season was suspended.

Porter looked terrific in that game, deftly using screens to create space, attacking the basket and stepping back to knock in 3s. But that’s the challenge in assessing Porter: balancing the striking highs with the big picture.

He was in the 39th percentile in scoring efficiency on isolations, the 27th percentile as the pick-and-roll ball-handler and the 21st percentile on dribble hand-offs. Even if we take a broader view and look at his overall drive stats, including when he was attacking closeouts and other scenarios, he shot just 41.9 percent and had more turnovers (27) than assists (25).

The one clear positive in his off-the-dribble game was his ability to get to the free-throw line. Porter drew a foul on just over 10 percent of his drives, a rate that ranked 20th among the 144 players who logged at least 200 drives last season. Expanding out to the other two levels, Porter hit a very useful 40.7 percent of his catch-and-shoot 3-pointers but was abysmal as a pull-up shooter — making just a hair over 30 percent of his pull-ups inside the arc and just 25.7 percent from beyond it.

So, in terms of what he presented this season as a whole, Porter was an atrocious defender and a fairly clear offensive negative when he was doing anything besides spotting up. Even if you assume that he can improve defensively with experience, he probably isn’t big enough to defend 3s full-time (although he spent about 28 of his defensive possessions against them this season) and the Cavs were unsurprisingly terrible when Porter, Garland and Collin Sexton were on the floor together — scoring 96.6 points per 100 possessions, allowing 122.9, getting outscored by 26.3 per 100.

That late winter hot streak and the height of his highs this season will probably be enough to preserve the optimism around Porter’s ceiling. But he still hasn’t really answered any of the meaningful questions about his game. He could be a dynamic three-level scorer. Or he could be Jordan Clarkson. (Or…gulp…Jordan Crawford).