Cavs season preview: Craig Porter Jr. – Can he be a quality backup point guard?

Point guard is the deepest position in the league, and it’s the hardest position to make a career out of as a role player.

The talent pool for bench guards is incredibly vast. The gap between the third point guard in the NBA and a good G League guard is thin — much thinner than any other position. Just thinking about this for a few seconds explains why.

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The height and athleticism prerequisites aren’t as stringent for point guards as they are for centers. There’s only so many coordinated and athletic people in the world who are 6’10” or taller. That’s why older players who are well past their primes, like De’Andre Jordan, Mason Plumlee, and Bismack Biyombo, all spent time on rosters last season. The center depth just isn’t there, especially not at the G League level, where you typically have either severely undersized bigs trying to get by on toughness or appropriately sized bigs that don’t have the coordination or athleticism to make it onto an NBA roster.

Those same issues just aren’t there for point guards. Far more people meet the prerequisites to play point guard, meaning there’s far more people capable and qualified to take your spot. That’s worrying for someone like Craig Porter Jr., who is entering the final year of his four-year deal. Additionally, a prospect coming up from the G League to be the third point guard wouldn’t be making as much as Porter in what would be his fifth season, which is meaningful in a salary cap league.

Porter is certainly qualified to be the third point guard in the NBA. He’s shown this repeatedly throughout his three-year career when he’s been asked to enter the rotation due to injuries. While they aren’t typical point guard skills, his ability to accumulate an exceptionally high steal, block, and rebound percentage for a guard is helpful. That, combined with his ability to finish and create for others in the open court, has made him a quality end-of-the-bench player.

However, if Porter is going to continue collecting an NBA paycheck for multiple more seasons, he will need to prove that he’s more than just an adequate third guard. Ideally, he would show that he can…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/cavs-season-preview-craig-porter-110000250.html

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Publish date : 2026-09-25 11:00:00

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