The 2020-21 and 2021-2022 Golden State Warriors were very similar, if you ignore the results. The leaders on both teams were Steph Curry and Draymond Green, and they played more games in the shortened 2020-21 season than the following one. Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole were young, variable contributors. Both teams were elite defenses that had fantastic effective field-goal percentages.
Then you add in the records, and you see that the 2022 team won the championship, while the 2021 team didn’t reach the playoffs.
Statistically, one major difference came in the possession game. For example, the team jumped from 30th to 17th in offensive rebounding percentage and from 22nd to 10th in defensive rebounding percentage. Overall, the team took 61 fewer shots than opponents in 2021 and only 11 fewer the next year. That small change paid big dividends. Furthermore, the team had a better offense with more spacing, a stronger back-end to the rotation, and more veteran contributors.
One key change that affected all of the above came in a quiet free agency addition between the two seasons: The signing of Otto Porter jr. For the 2021-22 Warriors, Porter had the second-best on/off differential behind only Steph Curry. That came largely because he added so much of what good teams want — shooting, cutting, defense, quick decision-making — while also helping around the edges, by rebounding, failing to commit turnovers, and also refusing to foul.
That’s exactly what the 2023-24 Toronto Raptors (as well as previous iterations) have needed. And in only a few appearances so far for these Raptors, that’s exactly what Porter has offered.
Against the San Antonio Spurs, Toronto’s monstrous, 22-point comeback largely coincided with Porter’s minutes. The team was shelled in the first half, as Porter played for only five minutes early in the second quarter. Toronto committed an ugly 12 turnovers, frequently tossing the ball away while driving for would-be lay-downs, and scored a minuscule 35 points. Then in the second half and overtime, Porter played 12 minutes, even closing instead of Jakob Poeltl. He hit two triples, and Toronto won his minutes by nine points — enough to force overtime and win the game. Toronto committed just one turnover in the second half and another one in overtime.
Porter himself committed zero turnovers. He grabbed three big defensive rebounds, two of which came in traffic as he snatched the ball away from San Antonio’s center, Zach Collins. Porter is long and strong and does his work on the glass early. Toronto flipped the possession differential in the second half, and that, in combination with Porter’s spacing, changed the story of the game.
Porter gives a team full of versatile players the ability to play in versatile ways. The Raptors are built out of players who can do so much on the court — cut, create, play off of others, pass, defend, run in transition, rebound, and more. The only issue is that when you throw them all together, roles don’t make a ton of sense, and there isn’t a whole lot of positive. The team as a whole has created the 22rd-high rate of uncontested shots in the half-court this season, with so much that they do create appearing to cost a heavy burden.
No other team makes offense look quite so hard as the Raptors.
Perhaps Porter’s biggest gift is that he helps to make what should be easy feel easy. In the fourth quarter, with Toronto closing the game against the Spurs, it found some of the easiest shots it had all game. That largely came because of the spacing offered by a lineup of Dennis Schroder, Porter, OG Anunoby, Pascal Siakam, and Scottie Barnes. Schroder was the speed demon with the ball. Porter and Anunoby are well-established shooters. Barnes was hot in the game — he finished with five made triples. And Pascal Siakam was in the strong-side corner — where, perhaps help should have peeled off of him, but that would have been against most defensive principles, and he is shooting 3-of-6 from that right corner on the season.
So help didn’t come, and Schroder found a rare uncontested layup at just the time when shots should be most contested.
Porter simply allows his teammates to do more. Because his usage is so low, but the space he offers so high, he both gives his teammates more room to work and more time to work — because he asks for so little of the ball. It is not a coincidence that Barnes was able to take over, dominate a game entirely, largely with Porter at his side. In comparison, Gary Trent jr. has a career usage rate of 20.5 percent. It’s been at 21.9 percent in Toronto. As a point of comparison, Porter has a career usage rate of 16.7 percent. (In a miniscule sample size, it has been 10.8 percent in Toronto.) He simply doesn’t try to do much unless he’s open behind the arc, facing a wild closeout, or cutting to the rim and receives the ball. He lets others do the heavy lifting — and Toronto is stocked with players who want the ball in their hands to try just that.
(By the way, and this is burying the lede, but obviously Porter’s success wasn’t the main story of the game last night. It was clearly the superstar output of Scottie Barnes. But I just wrote about that very thing, and Samson also has a piece coming out his performance against the Spurs later today.)
Porter doesn’t do very much that is visible, and in that way he allows his teammates to be more visible. He rebounds in crowds and blocks out. By winning the possession battle, he gives his teammates even more chances to shine.
The on/off data is incredibly noisy after only seven games, particularly for Porter, as he has played in only two. But he has the highest offensive on/offs on the team. Regardless of the utility of that stat so early in the season, he has always been an offensive positive because he helps win the possession battle, offers spacing, and doesn’t try to do a whole lot else. Outside of his last year in Chicago and his rookie season, every healthy year of his career, Porter has had an above-average offensive on/off differential. He has had five seasons in the 75th percentile or higher and three in the 90th percentile or higher. He has consistently helped offenses.
Porter also gives his coach, Darko Rajakovic, more options in which to field versatile units. One of Toronto’s winningest groups against the Spurs was a two-starter group — which it has used far less than one might expect — to supplement Barnes’ work with the bench. Rajakovic chose to play OG Anunoby alongside Barnes with the bench, and Porter’s presence gave that group extraordinary punch. It went plus-12 in the second half to buy vital rest for starters and eat into San Antonio’s lead.
Toronto has desperately needed a player like Porter. It needs shooting. It needs movement. And it needs someone who can succeed without the ball in his hands. We’ve spent a long time bemoaning Toronto’s lack of point guard depth, but it’s also significant that Toronto has also lacked shooting guard depth for just as long. Trent has been important for Toronto, though context has long helped him as a result of the thin shooting-guard talent. Perhaps one day soon, Gradey Dick will fill the role with even more pop than Porter, but he hasn’t yet his his triples and is still figuring out the cacophony of decisions to make on the court in the NBA. And right now, Toronto is asking Pascal Siakam to do a lot of the cutting, spacing, and shooting that most teams ask their shooting guards to do. That’s just not a recipe for individual or team-wide success.
Porter can do that job and free his higher-usage teammates to do other stuff with their time. He can help them in doing more by offering vital spacing. And he can let them do more for larger portions of the game by helping so much with the possession differential.
Add that all together, and Toronto has finally found a crucial contributor. Most teams have a variety of players who can do that. The Raptors, at the moment, have nobody beyond Porter. That’s something to solve going forward — but not the focus after such a momentous comeback win. For now, the Raptors are finally reaping the rewards of having Porter on the team. His box-score numbers will be quiet, but his advanced numbers will be loud. And for the Raptors, it will be a relief to finally have such a player on their side.
