After barely playing at the University of Missouri due to a bad back injury, Michael Porter Jr. was a huge question mark going into the 2018 draft. There were a lot of questions with his medical records, and teams were quite frankly scared off of drafting Porter, including the Chicago Bulls, who I happen to be a lifelong supporter of. The Bulls were drafting seventh, so they were for sure going to miss out on the likes of DeAndre Ayton, Luka Doncic, Marvin Bagley and Trae Young, and that’s where my “hot take” came in.
If Porter was going to fall to seven, they would be dumb not to take him, right? 19 years old, and if it weren’t for the injury, likely would go number one in the draft.
Well, Porter did indeed fall to seven, and the Bulls drafted Wendell Carter Jr. instead. Porter would drop all the way to 14 to the Denver Nuggets, where he would miss the entire season recovering from his back injuries. This season, Porter has had several games and moments where he has looked great, and even had a 25-point outburst on January 2nd against the Pacers where he went 11-12 from the field, which is breaking my heart.
Not in the sense that I don’t want him to succeed, because I’m very happy to see him on the floor healthy and playing well. That said, WHY BULLS WHY? Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand the fears of drafting a player who is injured, especially that high up in the draft, but it’s not like the Bulls were one piece away from being in the playoffs last season.
Carter is fine, but Porter has the chance to be one of the best players in the league at some point in his career. So now, the Bulls are still bad and instead of having a good scorer who has great size and ability we have a power forward who is….. Fine. Not great, definitely not bad, but fine.
So now, for the rest of Porter’s career, I’ll sit in admiration, while I watch him grow into an All-Star while I also watch the team I grew up loving continue to turn into a dumpster fire with Jim Boylen at the helm. Thank goodness.