We’re only a week into the 2017-18 NCAA college basketball season, and the incoming 2018 NBA Draft class is already showing up in a big way. Between DeAndre Ayton, Marvin Bagley, Luca Doncic, Mo Bamba, Jaran Jackson, and Miles Bridges — among others — NBA draft experts are predicting that this will be one of the better classes in recent memory. They said the same thing about the 2017 Draft class, mind you, and for the most part, they’ve played as advertised in the NBA thus far.
Missouri freshman Michael Porter Jr. belongs in the same category with the other prospects mentioned above, but the start of his college basketball season has been pretty anticlimactic thanks to an unfortunate and mysterious leg injury. When Porter is at his best, he’s a legitimate candidate for the No. 1 overall draft selection in June, and while whatever leg injury he’s dealing with now doesn’t appear to be serious, it’s certainly not ideal.
The excellent folks at ESPN’s Draft Express released a scouting report on Porter in October, and it’s worth a watch if your unfamiliar with his talent.
ESPN’s Jeff Goodman reported on Thursday that Porter is going to miss Missouri’s game against Utah with the same leg injury that sidelined him vs. Wagner. Porter suffered the injury just two minutes into his Missouri debut vs. Iowa State.
What makes Porter’s injury bizarre is how vaguely everyone seems to be addressing it. Nobody has any details as to what is bothering Porter. “Leg injury” is the term Missouri continues to put out there, and to make matters stranger, Porter wasn’t even on the Tigers bench in their game against Wagner. Instead, Porter was in the locker room icing his “leg injury.”
We’re going to assume nothing catastrophic is going on with Porter for the simple fact that if it was something more serious that required surgery, or consistent medical supervision, we’d have heard about it by now. Regardless, it’s not the start either Porter nor Missouri wanted, and we can only hope he returns to the court soon, and that nothing serious is going on here.
