A SUPERSTAR BREAKOUT WILL HELP AN NBA WITH TOO MANY PORTER PROBLEMS

The league has gambling issues, banning Jontay Porter for tanking, and while we see if brother Michael can overcome family horrors, a sport with too many aging legends can use new playoff magnificence

     The NBA has a gambling problem and a Porter problem. Or, they happen to be one and the same. Early this week, Jontay Porter was banned when he tanked games by playing hooky, claiming a sudden illness and allowing a bettor to win an unpaid $1.1 million. He also wagered 13 times on an associate’s online account, with a payout of $76,059. At least no one died, which couldn’t be asserted Friday.

     That’s when Jontay’s brother, Coban, received a six-year prison sentence for killing a woman while he drove drunk.

     Michael Porter Jr. must answer for his family, you might say. He is the third-best player on the Nuggets, aiming for back-to-back championships in Denver, and we will assume for society’s sake that he plays clean and drinks responsibly. Closer to the point, the league needs a glorious new story larger than a player covering for two brotherly horrors, including more of the gambling shambles on everyone’s mind. It’s time for fresh explosions on the court in the playoffs. We’re sick of scandals.

     Is Anthony Edwards the next face of the game? We’re brain-drained by Nikola Jokic, who casually might win two straight titles and three MVPs, but will Luka Doncic finally take over the postseason? Is Jalen Brunson the ball prince of New York, which hasn’t won in 51 years? I not only can spell Shai Gilgeous-Alexander but have highlighted him twice. Basic thinkers expect the Boston Celtics and Jayson Tatum to triumph through an easy East and embattled West, but here is what I’d say about every name above.

     None are superduperstars. None are even superstars. They’re stars, on the North American landscape, waiting for a touch from an angel, someone who trademarked Patrick Mahomes and turned Travis Kelce into a god for his girlfriend’s new music.

     The NBA needs a transformation, now.

     Remember how it was eight years ago, when ESPN and Turner Sports settled media rights quickly as Stephen Curry and LeBron James were establishing June conflict? These days, neither network is in a rush to throw too many billions at commissioner Adam Silver. He’s in no position to demand barely more than half of the NFL’s boom — $120 billion — and his negotiation windows with both are ending without a signature, as the Athletic reported. A streaming platform such as Amazon or Peacock will enter the fray, and there will be more to broadcasting life than Mike Breen on the call and Charles Barkley, whose show with Gayle King bombed out on CNN.

     Pro basketball needs a lift, as Major League Baseball realizes after Caitlin Clark’s ratings blew away everyone but football. Silver’s league has woes. It’s too easy to fix almost anything in a mode where Porter’s lunacy leads to future wrongdoing. And a league that always has sold entertainment has holes. The NBA has relied on James, Curry and Kevin Durant for too long. Who replaces them? The other day, Grant Hill announced the U.S. Olympic team’s roster choices for Paris, and the four biggest names were James, Curry, Durant and Joel Embiid.

     Of course, Curry already has been eliminated with the Golden State Warriors, and the others could be gone in a few days. The league’s lions hail from other countries — including Jokic, Doncic, Gilgeous-Alexander, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Embiid, who didn’t became an American citizen until 2022 — and the most recent MVPs from the U.S. are James Harden in 2018 and Russell Westbrook in 2017. Do we have a great player who was American born and bred? Would it be Tatum? Edwards? Brunson?

     They aren’t Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant. Or close, as Victor Wembanyama waits for monstrousness.

     What a magnificent story if LeBron leads the Lakers past the Nuggets. We would embrace that scene, not that it’s possible. To hear James, it’s just another opponent, though he still isn’t over enemy potshots. Denver coach Michael Malone kidded he was retiring last summer, as James supposedly was weighing following a playoff sweep. “In Europe for the last past few weeks minding my business and I hear I'm on your mind that much huh???” James wrote on Instagram. “I mean I guess I see why ... Enjoy your light but just know I'm the SUN.”

     LeBron wants to be the SUN once more. “I think you're putting a little bit too much emphasis on it. This is our first-round matchup,” he said of the rematch. “I mean, we're looking forward to the postseason. But I haven't been, like, looking forward to the rematch. The game is played how it's being played, and this is the matchup. So we're looking forward to that challenge.”

     Personal, huh? “It shouldn't be personal at all,” he said. “I think you allow yourself to get away from the game plan when you make it too personal. We have a game plan. You go out there and execute it and you live with the results. I'm kind of the last person you should (ask) -- I just stay even-keeled. I've been in the postseason way too long in my career to know that you don't get too high off of Game 1 or get too high over whoever the matchup is. You got to just stay even-keeled.”

     Win, then. Until Michael Porter — who shot 10 for 10, with five threes, against the Lakers in the regular season — might respond as he knows how. “It has not been easy for him. That’s why I give him credit, because he’s carrying so much in his heart and on his mind,” Malone said. “For him to go out there and do the job that he’s doing, it speaks to how much strength that young man has. He has a tremendous faith and I couldn’t be happier for him because it has not been an easy road for him.”

     “I don’t think we’ve spoken to him about it. That’s just not something we talk about,” teammate Jamal Murray said. “We’re just keeping it professional here and we all support him. He’s handling it really well. Obviously, it’s not easy. But yeah, we’re just letting him deal with it.”

     All we have from Porter is what he told a Denver district court judge. “It’s not often that a big brother looks up to his little brother,” he said of his relationship with Coban, speaking of the best times.

     It’s a double dose of tragedy, not something to rave about during highlights, so let’s create originals. I’ll take Doncic. You take whatever American is out there. 

     ###

     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.