Michael Porter Jr.: Clippers Doctor Thought I'd 'Never Play Basketball Again'

Denver Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr. missed all but three games during his lone season at Missouri in 2017-18 with a lower back injury that required a microdiscectomy to repair one of two bulging discs in his back. 

Apparently the Los Angeles Clippers team doctor thought his back was in such bad shape that he didn't believe Porter would play hoops again, per comments the Nuggets forward made to reporters on Wednesday (h/t Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN).

"No, their doctor was the one that wrote the report on me," he said. "I think he wrote some stuff like he thought that I would never play basketball again so I didn't think [the Clippers would] pick me."

Porter's answer was in response to a question about whether he's thought about what it would have been like if he had landed with L.A. The Denver Nuggets eventually took Porter 14th overall, right after the Clippers passed on him with the draft's 12th and 13th overall selections.

Porter entered the 2017-18 college basketball season as a potential top-three pick in the 2018 NBA draft, but his draft stock fell because of the injury.

Clippers coach Doc Rivers said the process of evaluating and deciding to pass on Porter was "brutal" for the team.

Denver has clearly benefitted from Porter falling in the lottery: He posted 22.0 points on 55.1 percent shooting during his team's seeding games, including a season-high 37 versus the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Porter averaged 12.0 points and 7.0 rebounds in the Nuggets' 4-3 first-round series win over the Utah Jazz.

Now the Nuggets will face the Clippers in the second round of the NBA playoffs beginning Thursday, and he did have some comments on that matchup.

"But, I mean, it's going to be fun to play against them, for sure," Porter said.

Porter underwent surgery of the lumbar spine in July 2018 and missed the entire 2018-19 season. But he's been healthy in 2019-20, making his debut on Oct. 31, 2019.

The Nuggets didn't feature him in the rotation consistently until mid-January, but he's been largely excellent on the offensive end ever since. He's particularly shined in the Disney World campus portion of the NBA season after an injury to Will Barton opened up some more playing time on the wing.