Michael Porter Jr. slides to Denver in first round of NBA Draft
Michael Porter Jr. was on the board much longer than expected on Thursday night. Nonetheless, his dream is now a reality. Porter Jr. is officially a professional basketball player.
The Denver Nuggets selected Porter 14th overall in the 2018 NBA Draft. He is now the 16th former Mizzou basketball player to be taken in the first round of the draft.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/AndrewABC17/status/1009977257480413184″,”author_name”:”Andrew Kauffman”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/AndrewABC17″,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;Watch: Michael Porter Jr. is selected 14th overall by the Denver Nuggets. You may recognize some of the HS video I shot a few years ago at Mexico HS. &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/nRBWDRCdom”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/nRBWDRCdom&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Andrew Kauffman (@AndrewABC17) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/AndrewABC17/status/1009977257480413184?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;June 22, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
Porter Jr. is the first former Tolton High School basketball player to get drafted into the NBA. Porter helped lead the Trail Blazers to a state championship in 2016.
Porter is the first Mizzou basketball player selected in the NBA Draft since the Washington Wizards drafted Jordan Clarkson in 2014. He is also the first Tiger taken in the first round since DeMarre Carroll in 2009.
Porter played in just three games as a Tiger due to a back surgery in November. He finished his Mizzou career with 30 points and 20 rebounds.
Leading up to the draft, Porter battled a hip injury that caused him to miss a scheduled workout. Porter later called the concerns “exaggerated” and said he is feeling good.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/AndrewABC17/status/1009967184850931712″,”author_name”:”Andrew Kauffman”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/AndrewABC17″,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;Michael Porter Jr. on getting selected 14th overall by the Nuggets:&#lt;br&#gt;&#lt;br&#gt;”I’m going to make sure this pick is this organization’s best pick they’ve ever made.” &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/ap6Fy1SFUN”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/ap6Fy1SFUN&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Andrew Kauffman (@AndrewABC17) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/AndrewABC17/status/1009967184850931712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;June 22, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
Denver and Porter’s agent will now decide whether or not he will play in the NBA Summer League or continue resting before the 2018-19 NBA season.
ABC 17’s Tyler Murry spent the NBA Draft with one of Porter’s biggest supporters at Tolton. Father Mike Coleman said the wait was worth it for him, and he is excited to see what Porter does in the NBA.
Full story:
