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When the Houston Rockets’ 20-year-old shooting guard Kevin Porter Jr. dropped a 50 piece last Thursday, thus becoming the youngest NBA player to ever score 50 points in a game, jaws dropped league-wide. After all, just a few months back, the Cavaliers dumped Porter Jr. onto the recently Harden-less Rockets due to his outburst when he became enraged that Taurean Prince had taken his locker location. Porter Jr. saw his locker demoted to a “second string bench player” area across the clubhouse and threw a “tantrum” according to the Cavaliers brass. The Cleveland organization deemed him too “toxic” for their team and gave up on one of the most talented young scorers in the NBA – trading him for basically a bag of Hot Cheetos and a bucket of fried chicken.
So how did this kid go from “toxic presence in the locker room” to “future of the Rockets organization?” Might have a lot to do with patience, which is what a lot of NBA teams who are looking to compete do not have.
We’re just 4 months removed from this conversation.
How NBA Teams Handle Troubled Young Stars
Many are saying that Rockets off-court guru John Lucas, who has openly admitted his career suffered due to his own struggle with drugs and alcohol, has played a big role in mentoring the young ex-USC Trojan and turning his focus and life around. If that’s the case, that is a massive accomplishment. It makes you wonder what so many players who came before Kevin Porter Jr. who squandered talent and opportunity would have done with the right mentor guiding them.
The Long History of Misbehaved Stars
The long list of cancerous NBA players who were gifted but couldn’t stay focused has been documented in ESPN’s 30 for 30 and Sports Illustrated articles for decades. Michael Ray Richardson comes to mind. So do Lenny Cooke, Keon Clark (who claimed he never played a game sober), Chris Herron, Len Bias, and Antoine Walker. Many of these casualties are due to drugs and alcohol. But off-court attitude and entitlement play a big problem in NBA careers as well.
How Kevin Porter Jr. Compares to Other Troubled Young NBA Stars
Porter Jr.’s issue originally looked to me to be more about entitlement and frustration than anything else. Players who make the NBA are a special breed, no matter how their careers play out. Many of them have never been a second-stringer, a second or third option on the floor, or a millionaire before.
Temptation and expectation lurk everywhere, from the nightlife to women to family members wondering why you aren’t taking care of them. The pressure is immense. Many players make the league, achieve their dream, and never strive for much more than a spot as role players. Others never stop working and end up like Kobe Bryant or LeBron James. It’s a tricky scenario, but if you look at the type of person you were when you were 20-years-old, can you blame a kid for feeling disrespected for having his locker moved? I can’t even publicly share some of the embarrassing things I did when I was 20.
Then, of course, one can surely think of more famous “difficult player” incidents – like when Gilbert Arenas brought a handgun into the Wizards locker room and threatened Javaris Crittenton (Now sadly in prison for murder). But the question continues to arise: How far is a team willing to go when they have a player with a disciplinary problem?
The Difference Talent Makes
Well, talent can quickly lead a team to deem any difficult player as not a problem. With a little rage-counseling, the Wizards brought back Arenas. Mainly because he was a league scoring leader a few years earlier. Kevin Porter Jr. was acting like a frustrated rookie when the Cavs dropped him. That’s a far cry from bringing a pistol into a locker room and threatening a teammate. Of course, Arenas losing that year hurt his career, and his production never fully recovered. He never played more than 49 games in a season after that. Up until that point in his career, he looked to be headed for the Hall of Fame. But now he stalks former teammates like Nick Young on Instagram and films himself bullying Swaggy P’s young children.
This man is insane…
With today’s social media affecting EVERYTHING, posts like Michael Beasley’s “Super Cool Beas” tattoo mirror selfie with a baggie of weed 10 years back unfortunately cause GMs and coaches to cringe in horror, as this behavior makes an organization look undisciplined and not focused. It’s the same scenario in any business. So when Paul Pierce posted a video of himself smoking a blunt with a naked stripper humping the couch behind him last month, ESPN had no choice but to fire him. Hell, even if I posted something on my IG like that, I doubt you’d be reading any more Zach to the Rack columns from here on out… (Note to my readers: don’t look at my posts from 2013).
A Star NBA Player Is Not So Easily Replaceable
But a guy like Paul Pierce is easily replaceable at ESPN. A star NBA player? Not so much. In 1997, the classic “off-court king of controversy” Dennis Rodman left the Chicago Bulls during the playoffs to “clear his head.” If you watched The Last Dance, his little three-day sojourn to Las Vegas to party and have threesomes with Carmen Electra was shrugged off by the Bulls organization because they knew he was an essential part of their championship run. The same thing happened when James Harden spent training camp in Vegas before this season began. Or when Lou Williams went to get the chicken wings at Magic City Strip Club in Atlanta. These players were too valuable to punish. (Although Lou lost a few weeks, mainly because he violated COVID-19 protocol.)
The Focus on Mental Health in Today’s NBA
And then we have guys like Royce White, who had a notorious fear of flying and wouldn’t travel to road games with the Houston Rockets, thus cutting his promising career short. White’s anxiety helped the NBA begin its groundbreaking mental health program that players are embracing across the league, from Kevin Love to DeMar DeRozan. Imagine, however, where certain players would have ended up with this guideline in place during the past four or five decades.
That Dennis Rodman incident was way back in the 1990s. In today’s “everybody follows everybody” world, you can’t afford to make any stupid posts that will get you benched. Kevin Porter Jr. complaining that he lost his locker to a teammate proved enough for the Cavs to drop him like an Allen Iverson crossover. Obviously, there was a deeper reason for this move. And it may have had something to do with Collin Sexton and Darius Garland controlling the Cavs’ backcourt for the next few years.
Unfortunately, teams have always considered guys like Beasley to be otherworldly talented. But following the weed post, he found himself playing for 8 NBA teams in 10 years – not to mention three teams in China.
What Path Will Kevin Porter Jr. Take?
Porter’s 50-piece Thursday will do wonders for his popularity in the league. But he has to continue to play like that to back it up. Remember when starting Cavaliers guard Collin Sexton had the game of his life earlier this year and shut down the new-look superteam Nets? People were calling him “different” and “the future of the NBA.” Since that game, how much have you heard about Sexton? He had what they used to call in the video game NBA 2K a “Moments Card.” With these cards, individual achievement is celebrated for one game of high-level play. I for one, think this type of adulation is a problem for all players in the league who don’t have the killer instinct it takes to stay as consistent. They get their moment, and many of them go back to going through the motions.
Look, Kevin Porter Jr. is only 20. He’s averaging 16.7 points, 6.4 assists, and 3.9 rebounds per game right now (impressive numbers). And he has got a long career ahead of him. Can he prove that he can lead the Rockets to becoming a competitor again? It remains to be seen. Is he a “Moments Card” player or an elite talent like Devin Booker?
Whatever the case, if the Rockets want to keep him around to find out, they better make sure they don’t relocate his locker…
Going to be hard to ignore this crazy talent
