Kristaps Porzingis: Phoenix Suns 2015 Draft Profile

Weaknesses

If you look at just about any picture of Kristaps Porzingis, it’s easy to see how adding strength could be a concern.

Despite Porzingis looking like he’s Ivan Drago training partner for a big fight against Rocky, it’s pretty apparent how thin he looks. Then you compare his weight to the other top-five big men in the draft, and it just looks worse and worse.

Porzingis:

Height – 7’0″

Weight – 220 lbs

Towns:

Height – 6’11″

Weight – 250 lbs (+30)

Okafor:

Height – 6’11″

Weight – 275 lbs (+55)

Cauley-Stein:

Height – 7’1″

Weight – 242 lbs (+22)

Turner:

Height – 6’11″

Weight – 240 (+20)

There’s at least a 20-pound difference between Porzingis and every other to big man, and he’s even 15 pounds lighter than Frank Kaminsky, who was BY FAR the lightest center among players taller than 6’11″ measured at the NBA Draft Combine.

Additionally, there are a ton of NBA power forwards and even small forwards that outweigh Porzingis at the moment, both in the NBA and in the current draft class. For example, small forwards Justise Winslow and Justin Anderson, while Stanley Johnson has a 20-plus pound advantage on him.

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Then you look at the NBA, where there are even backcourt players that outweigh Porzingis. For example, Chicago’s Jimmy Butler, Houston’s James Harden and Toronto’s DeMar DeRozan all weight at least 220 pounds (Porzingis’ weight), despite falling in the 6’5″-to-6’7″ height range, putting them at least five inches shorter than Porzingis. And they are all shooting guards.

The fact of the matter is that Porzingis is incredibly well rounded as a prospect, and the biggest thing worrying teams is his strength and toughness inside, although that certainly isn’t the only area that he could improve in.

I already talked about Porzingis’ lack of a post game offensively, and I’ll expand on that a bit here. Porzingis often struggles to establish good position early, at which point he doesn’t have the strength to drop the defender back 10 feet and get to the rim.

So pretty much, all of his post-ups end up looking the same. Porzingis stands about 12-15 feet from the hoop, where he tries to back his defender down unsuccessfully. Then he either faces up and tries to beat his defender off the dribble, or settles for a contested turnaround jumper, which can be a bit of a problem.

Porzignis isn’t the type of player that will battle through a physical defender keeping him from the hoop, and for that reason, he can fall in love with the jump shot a little too much.

That problem shows itself on the outside too. Porzingis will sometimes take contested jumpers rather than attacking off the dribble to get into the paint, which he is certainly capable of.

Now, there is one other area to address, which ESPN actually lists as a weakness on his NBA Draft Profile page. They question whether he has a position at the NBA level, or whether he’d always be an oversized four or an undersized five.

I disagree with that, in that I think it’s pretty clear at this point that Porzingis needs to be a four, unless he’s going to put on a minimum of like 40 pounds, which doesn’t seem likely. Given his lack of physicality in the post on both offense and as an on-ball defender, it seems like Porzingis pretty much has to be a four, and he would also need to change his mentality a bit if he were going to battle with the NBA fives, so I see that fit as less of a problem than others.

Next: Potential Fit