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Perspective | Otto Porter holds the Wizards together with an unwavering ethic to improve
By Thomas Boswell
Columnist
November 21 at 3:40 PM
Everybody would like to get better at something. Some of us would like to get better at several things. But the Washington Wizards’ Otto Porter Jr. wants to get better at everything every year. What sets Porter apart is that he’s done it for five straight seasons, going from the bust of the 2013 draft to the brink of understated stardom.
After his latest improvements, it’s becoming a challenge to evaluate him. Although he depends on the brilliance of John Wall and Bradley Beal more than they depend on his diligent fundamentals-first game, Porter may now approach, or even equal, them in total value to the Wizards.
There are even several advanced stat metrics that say Porter is inching into the top 20 players in the NBA because so many areas of his game are among the league’s most efficient, including his defense, and almost none are weak. But there’s no reason to push the Porter case too hard. We’ll get to that.
Right now, he’s just a pleasure to watch — that is, if you can find him. He blends and complements others so well, hustling, diving for a ball or defending that he’s the rare player who fills up a box score without ever needing the ball — except in the instant he catches and shoots it, rebounds it or steals it from you.
“You can’t put a price on his value to our team just because of that,” Wizards Coach Scott Brooks said of a player who averages 15.8 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.8 steals while focusing on teammates and seldom having a play run for him.
“Otto is the glue man. Like ‘Elmer’s Glue,’ he holds things together,” said Brooks, not known for being effusive. “Otto always thinks the purity of the game. He’s everybody’s favorite player. If you don’t love Otto, you are the problem.”
[Bradley Beal becomes youngest player in NBA history to make 700 three-pointers]
Not long ago, everyone hated Otto. When you’re picked third overall after being an all-American at Georgetown, then average 2.1 points while getting your 190-pound frame pushed around or injured, you get tagged as a flop.
But it’s amazing what taking 1,000 shots a day, year-round will do for your accuracy, or how adding 28 hard pounds to a lean 6-foot-8 frame will help you become a fine rebounding small forward and the team’s best-rated defender, too.
In the Wizards’ 99-88 victory over Milwaukee on Monday, Porter had 12 points and 11 rebounds and, in much of the second half, also adequately guarded 6-11 Giannis Antetokounmpo, who averages 29.7 points a game. With Porter on the floor, the Wizards outscored the Bucks by 22 points. No other starter was more than plus-5. The Glue Man.
Usually, a line of numbers is boring. But to any hoops lover, these season sequences should be thrilling. Porter’s shooting percentage in his five seasons on two-pointers: .414, .491, .536, .576 and .592. His shooting percentage on three-pointers: .190, .337, .367, .434 (fourth in the NBA) and now up to .470. Combine those two and you get Effective Field Goal Percentage, the current NBA grail since the value of threes has been fully appreciated. There, he’s .385, .495, .541, .608 to .632. Ninth in the NBA.
By last year his game grew so much that multiple teams gave him nine-figure offer sheets. To keep him, the Wizards matched: a four-year, $106.5 million deal.
Would he become complacent or feel pressure? No, he’s just kept improving. “It’s been a journey,” Porter said since that rookie year he still calls “motivation.”
Back then, Kobe Bryant asked Porter how many shots he took a day. Otto said 500.
“No. It’s got to be 1,000,’” Bryant said. “That stuck with me ever since: Oh, there it is, ” Porter said. “If you want to be better at every aspect of the game, you’ve got to put in the time.”
That applies 365. Weight work, too.
Brooks believes many players only have such a work ethic in response to a shooting slump.
“They get bored with making [thousands of] shots . . . I’m a believer to the day I’m dead that you need diligent consistency every day,” Brooks said. “Success breeds complacency. But the great ones don’t get bored. With Otto I don’t see [complacency]. He’s as consistent as anyone you will ever be around.”
Porter has great strengths, such as ranking No. 1 in the NBA in steal-to-turnover ratio, meaning he makes a fool out of you more than twice as often as you dupe him. And with his accurate shooting and low turnovers, he’s among the top 10 in Offensive Rating. In theory, a team of Porters would score 126.6 points a game.
But Porter has limits, too. He’s not a prolific scorer and probably never could be. He seldom creates his own shot, but spots up for three-pointers on passes from Wall or benefits from the room created by the threat of Beal (24.2 ppg). He trails the fast break for put-backs. His low-post game has grown, but it’s incidental damage.
“A big part of the low turnovers is that [Wall and Beal] make a lot of plays for us, and we need them to. They’re elite guys. As they go, we go,” Porter said. “They make my job a lot, lot easier.”
But Porter makes their lives easier, too. Wall and Beal need the ball — a ton — to be their best; Porter barely needs it at all (eighth on the Wizards in “usage percentage”). Hence, synergy.
“He’s a true professional,” Beal said. “You can plug him anywhere and he gels. And he guards some of the best on defense.”
One game, treat yourself. Just watch Porter, the invisible glue of the Wizards. On defense, he’s usually the Wizard closest to his man, pressuring, disrupting, or else the one measuring how he can sneak over to help a teammate. He runs the floor ceaselessly; his long lope lets him cruise past others. When he gets in the action, he finds an extra last-instant gear to change a shot, react first to a loose ball.
“When I came up, it was never about me. It was about winning and the team,” said Porter, who played for Scott County Central High School in Missouri which, despite an enrollment of only 180, has won 18 boys and six girls state basketball titles. “That’s the values that I had growing up.”
Those are also the values — long-range shooting efficiency, eliminating mistakes, creating synergy, defense, hustle plays with no stat attached — that modern NBA front offices such as San Antonio and Golden State prize and also try to find ways to measure with advanced metrics.
I’m still leery of NBA stats like Wins Shares, Box Score Plus-Minus and Value-Over-Replacement-Player that try to combine every skill into one number. But it’s only fair to Porter to note that he’s ranked 14th, 10th and 10th in the NBA in those categories, often ahead of far more famous players, helped in all cases by his defense.
How long, and how much can Porter keep improving? Ask Otto, whose main coaches growing up were his late uncle Larry Mosley and father Otto Sr., and he just gives a list of his imperfections: pick-and-rolls, pin downs, scoring off the dribble, when to spot a mismatch at the three-point line and take his man to the low post. And then there’s his left hand. He chuckles and says, “A work in progress.”
The Wizards, however, don’t need, or even want Porter to change too much.
“He’s just a great person,” Brooks said, “who happens to be a really, really . . .” The coach stopped. He was going to say, “good player,” but as all those stat progressions show, Porter just keeps outgrowing old perceptions.
“He’s a great person,” Brooks amended, “who happens to be a great basketball player.”
By Thomas Boswell
Columnist
November 21 at 3:40 PM
Everybody would like to get better at something. Some of us would like to get better at several things. But the Washington Wizards’ Otto Porter Jr. wants to get better at everything every year. What sets Porter apart is that he’s done it for five straight seasons, going from the bust of the 2013 draft to the brink of understated stardom.
After his latest improvements, it’s becoming a challenge to evaluate him. Although he depends on the brilliance of John Wall and Bradley Beal more than they depend on his diligent fundamentals-first game, Porter may now approach, or even equal, them in total value to the Wizards.
There are even several advanced stat metrics that say Porter is inching into the top 20 players in the NBA because so many areas of his game are among the league’s most efficient, including his defense, and almost none are weak. But there’s no reason to push the Porter case too hard. We’ll get to that.
Right now, he’s just a pleasure to watch — that is, if you can find him. He blends and complements others so well, hustling, diving for a ball or defending that he’s the rare player who fills up a box score without ever needing the ball — except in the instant he catches and shoots it, rebounds it or steals it from you.
“You can’t put a price on his value to our team just because of that,” Wizards Coach Scott Brooks said of a player who averages 15.8 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.8 steals while focusing on teammates and seldom having a play run for him.
“Otto is the glue man. Like ‘Elmer’s Glue,’ he holds things together,” said Brooks, not known for being effusive. “Otto always thinks the purity of the game. He’s everybody’s favorite player. If you don’t love Otto, you are the problem.”
[Bradley Beal becomes youngest player in NBA history to make 700 three-pointers]
Not long ago, everyone hated Otto. When you’re picked third overall after being an all-American at Georgetown, then average 2.1 points while getting your 190-pound frame pushed around or injured, you get tagged as a flop.
But it’s amazing what taking 1,000 shots a day, year-round will do for your accuracy, or how adding 28 hard pounds to a lean 6-foot-8 frame will help you become a fine rebounding small forward and the team’s best-rated defender, too.
In the Wizards’ 99-88 victory over Milwaukee on Monday, Porter had 12 points and 11 rebounds and, in much of the second half, also adequately guarded 6-11 Giannis Antetokounmpo, who averages 29.7 points a game. With Porter on the floor, the Wizards outscored the Bucks by 22 points. No other starter was more than plus-5. The Glue Man.
Usually, a line of numbers is boring. But to any hoops lover, these season sequences should be thrilling. Porter’s shooting percentage in his five seasons on two-pointers: .414, .491, .536, .576 and .592. His shooting percentage on three-pointers: .190, .337, .367, .434 (fourth in the NBA) and now up to .470. Combine those two and you get Effective Field Goal Percentage, the current NBA grail since the value of threes has been fully appreciated. There, he’s .385, .495, .541, .608 to .632. Ninth in the NBA.
By last year his game grew so much that multiple teams gave him nine-figure offer sheets. To keep him, the Wizards matched: a four-year, $106.5 million deal.
Would he become complacent or feel pressure? No, he’s just kept improving. “It’s been a journey,” Porter said since that rookie year he still calls “motivation.”
Back then, Kobe Bryant asked Porter how many shots he took a day. Otto said 500.
“No. It’s got to be 1,000,’” Bryant said. “That stuck with me ever since: Oh, there it is, ” Porter said. “If you want to be better at every aspect of the game, you’ve got to put in the time.”
That applies 365. Weight work, too.
Brooks believes many players only have such a work ethic in response to a shooting slump.
“They get bored with making [thousands of] shots . . . I’m a believer to the day I’m dead that you need diligent consistency every day,” Brooks said. “Success breeds complacency. But the great ones don’t get bored. With Otto I don’t see [complacency]. He’s as consistent as anyone you will ever be around.”
Porter has great strengths, such as ranking No. 1 in the NBA in steal-to-turnover ratio, meaning he makes a fool out of you more than twice as often as you dupe him. And with his accurate shooting and low turnovers, he’s among the top 10 in Offensive Rating. In theory, a team of Porters would score 126.6 points a game.
But Porter has limits, too. He’s not a prolific scorer and probably never could be. He seldom creates his own shot, but spots up for three-pointers on passes from Wall or benefits from the room created by the threat of Beal (24.2 ppg). He trails the fast break for put-backs. His low-post game has grown, but it’s incidental damage.
“A big part of the low turnovers is that [Wall and Beal] make a lot of plays for us, and we need them to. They’re elite guys. As they go, we go,” Porter said. “They make my job a lot, lot easier.”
But Porter makes their lives easier, too. Wall and Beal need the ball — a ton — to be their best; Porter barely needs it at all (eighth on the Wizards in “usage percentage”). Hence, synergy.
“He’s a true professional,” Beal said. “You can plug him anywhere and he gels. And he guards some of the best on defense.”
One game, treat yourself. Just watch Porter, the invisible glue of the Wizards. On defense, he’s usually the Wizard closest to his man, pressuring, disrupting, or else the one measuring how he can sneak over to help a teammate. He runs the floor ceaselessly; his long lope lets him cruise past others. When he gets in the action, he finds an extra last-instant gear to change a shot, react first to a loose ball.
“When I came up, it was never about me. It was about winning and the team,” said Porter, who played for Scott County Central High School in Missouri which, despite an enrollment of only 180, has won 18 boys and six girls state basketball titles. “That’s the values that I had growing up.”
Those are also the values — long-range shooting efficiency, eliminating mistakes, creating synergy, defense, hustle plays with no stat attached — that modern NBA front offices such as San Antonio and Golden State prize and also try to find ways to measure with advanced metrics.
I’m still leery of NBA stats like Wins Shares, Box Score Plus-Minus and Value-Over-Replacement-Player that try to combine every skill into one number. But it’s only fair to Porter to note that he’s ranked 14th, 10th and 10th in the NBA in those categories, often ahead of far more famous players, helped in all cases by his defense.
How long, and how much can Porter keep improving? Ask Otto, whose main coaches growing up were his late uncle Larry Mosley and father Otto Sr., and he just gives a list of his imperfections: pick-and-rolls, pin downs, scoring off the dribble, when to spot a mismatch at the three-point line and take his man to the low post. And then there’s his left hand. He chuckles and says, “A work in progress.”
The Wizards, however, don’t need, or even want Porter to change too much.
“He’s just a great person,” Brooks said, “who happens to be a really, really . . .” The coach stopped. He was going to say, “good player,” but as all those stat progressions show, Porter just keeps outgrowing old perceptions.
“He’s a great person,” Brooks amended, “who happens to be a great basketball player.”
mastermind
Rest In Power Kobe
I just need Otto to demand the ball from Wall and Beal, but he has been an excellent player this season.
Its to the point where I don't want to give him up in any trade.
Its to the point where I don't want to give him up in any trade.
In yet another disappointing season for the Washington Wizards, there was a curious and encouraging development. No, not the extension awarded to team president Ernie Grunfeld-- that’s baffling and dispiriting. Rather, forward Otto Porter performed at an All-NBA level.
If you’re in the group that believes Porter is nothing more than a premium-priced role player, that may sound preposterous. But hear me out. There’s ample evidence to support the notion that despite his limitations, what Porter brings to the Wizards is impressive, unique, and valuable. And some of that is easy to overlook, because it’s not the stuff of highlight packages.
Put simply, Porter excels at the things that win basketball games while avoiding the stuff that loses them. He makes shots, plays good defense, rebounds the ball, while he avoids turnovers and fouls. All of this dovetails with long-established statistical research and insights on what makes the biggest difference in winning or losing a game.
Per 100 team possessions, Porter this season averaged 23.3 points, 10.1 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and 2.4 steals. Here’s the complete list of players who managed a similar combination:
- Anthony Davis
- Andre Drummond
- DeMarcus Cousins
- Russell Westbrook
- Ben Simmons
Over the past two seasons without Wall on the floor -- more than 1600 total minutes and more than 3000 total possessions -- Porter’s usage rate was a league average 20 percent and his offensive efficiency was 10 points per 100 possessions better than league average. Without Wall on the floor the past two seasons, he has an effective field goal rate of .556. That’s excellent shooting. Without Wall on the floor the past two seasons, Porter’s turnover rate remained a freakishly low 1.7 per 100 team possessions.
This season, Porter’s performance for the first 18 games of Wall’s absence following knee surgery, was stellar and largely overlooked. This was the “Everybody Eats -- #FreeSato --are they better without Wall?” portion of the season, when the Wizards offense featured ball and player movement, and the team went 12-6. During that span, Porter’s usage rate rose to an above average 21.3 percent and his offensive rating was a stratospheric 129 points per 100 possessions.
For perspective, here’s the complete list of players who managed similar efficiency on similar usage in 2017-18: Karl-Anthony Towns and Chris Paul.
Then, something happened, and Porter’s offensive efficiency and overall production fell back to to Earth. One argument is that opposing teams figured out what the Wizards were doing, made the appropriate adjustments to their game plans, and Porter was unable to make the appropriate counter-adjustments. That could be correct.
However, I don’t think it is. For one, 18 games is an eternity in the NBA. Teams are constantly scouting each other, and scouts and assistants pay extra attention to the most recent games. It typically takes about five games for a new scouting report to emerge, and for teams to start shifting strategies and coverages.
Second, and far more important, Porter drove to the basket during that 18th game at New Orleans, took a hard fall, and injured his hip. He didn’t miss a game, but his production plummeted. The following night, he aggravated the injury in a collision with Dwyane Wade. You can see for yourself how his production tailed off.
In that table, PPA is Player Production Average, which is my overall rating metric, calculated for each individual game. You can read more about it here, but the quick summary is that PPA is built on the factors that determine why teams win and lose in the NBA. It’s pace neutral, includes a “degree of difficulty” factor, and accounts for defense. In PPA, 100 is average, higher is better, and replacement level is 45. If you scan down the list of games, I think you’ll see where Porter hurt his hip.
Was it the scouting report catching up, or was it injury? It’s impossible to know for sure, but based on analysis of an array of statistical measures, the most likely explanation for Porter’s sudden performance drop-off is also the simplest. He was playing hurt.
Overall this season -- even including production diminished by injury, even without Wall for half the season -- Porter’s PPA was a career-best 175. That mark ties Chris Webber in 1996-97 for the second-best season for a Washington player since my database begins in 1977-78. (The best season was from Moses Malone, who posted a 189 in his first year with the Bullets.)
To further put this in perspective, that 175 is the fifth best PPA for a forward this season. That’s also true of Porter’s total and per game production.
The All-NBA team includes six forwards.
And this isn’t just a case of getting excited because a pet metric “loves” a player. Other credible advanced analytics metrics have Porter’s value in the same general range. Win Shares ranks him seventh among forwards. ESPN’s Real Plus Minus has him third, as does David Berri’s Wins Produced. Jacob Goldstein’s Player Impact Plus Minus ranks him fifth. Basketball-Reference has Porter seventh in Box Plus Minus, and sixth in Value Over Replacement Player.
The only advanced stat outlier is PER, which rewards players for inefficient shooting. In a league where the team that shoots best wins nearly 80 percent of the time, an “advanced” metric says a player is contributing by shooting more often if he makes more than 27 percent of his shots.
Back to those first 18 games without Wall: Porter’s PPA for that stretch was a dizzying 225. Here are the players this season with at least 1000 total minutes who had a PPA of 225 or higher: Steph Curry, Davis, James Harden, and Clint Capela. (We can argue about Capela’s worth later, but would any Wizards fan be anything less than overjoyed if he was the team’s starting center?). That’s the whole list. Paul and James were close, but didn’t quite get there.
Now, could Porter perform at that level for a full season? I doubt it -- at those heights, we’re talking about MVP candidates, the game’s true elite, a level where Porter’s limitations certainly come into play.
However, there’s a lot of space to be sub-MVP level and still terrific. That’s the pool in which Porter swims. Critiquing his game is fair. He’s not a great ball handler. He’s not someone who will go one-on-one and take a defender off the dribble. He could be more aggressive looking for his shot. He could be a better on-ball defender. And like every other player in the league, he could do a better job of not getting bodied by LeBron.
Nevertheless, Porter’s production -- at just 24 years of age -- is outstanding. He wasn’t the problem with this season’s Wizards, and he’s not the reason the franchise seems stuck on early playoff exits. His hip might be an area of ongoing concern; he’s had previous issues with it. But otherwise, he’s someone the Wizards can build around, and someone whose play should already have him viewed as a worthy co-star to the more celebrated Wall and Bradley Beal.
With limited financial and roster flexibility and both Grunfeld and Brooks seemingly locked in for the foreseeable future, the Wizards can’t look to outside saviors for improvement. But they could -- and should -- focus more time and attention this summer on finding ways to magnify and benefit from Porter’s strengths. He’s already one of the NBA’s best shooters and most productive players, and he still has room to improve and grow.
Blackrogue
Superstar
They are all good players. They are just making too much money and I don't think they equal that value. It's hamstringing us. Plus when our best players are in the guard spots at 6 ft 4 and below. How are they supposed to compete and beat teams with 6 ft 10 and 7 foot 2 equally talented players..and players like Bron who are bigger and more talented.
I liked what Hinkie he drafted a bunch of bigs till he got the ones who are franchise type player. Now it's easy to fill in the other spots. The gap between elite big men and the average big and their impact is way bigger than that with guards. Guards are a dime a dozen. Top bigs are a handful. Guards are many. So our players panned out but there's a limit to how much as a team we can beast.
I liked what Hinkie he drafted a bunch of bigs till he got the ones who are franchise type player. Now it's easy to fill in the other spots. The gap between elite big men and the average big and their impact is way bigger than that with guards. Guards are a dime a dozen. Top bigs are a handful. Guards are many. So our players panned out but there's a limit to how much as a team we can beast.
Scott Brooks is freezing him out
People thought it was Wall for some reason but Brooks really don’t run plays for him. Most of the shots he got was off being open and running. Brooks expects him to still get most of his shots like that even with teams taking those looks away from him now.
Yup. Also, I agree with benching him in the 4th. His defense especially on shooters was terrible tonight.