Keith Strudler: Two Minutes

In the official record books, Michael Porter Jr. will likely complete his college athletic career having played two official minutes of Division I basketball for the University of Missouri. That’s neither definitive nor official at this point, because Porter is only in his first season with the Tigers. But it’s a very strong hunch.

The reason for this is that Porter just underwent back surgery and is expected to be out three to four months. In college basketball terms, that puts him right about the end of the season. Of course, if you ask Missouri fans, the official season’s end might have come a couple of weeks ago in their season opener against Iowa State. Two minutes into that game, Michael Porter Jr. left the court with an injury and never returned. Not to that game nor any of the following three, including a resounding loss to Utah and a narrow victory over Emporia State from the far lesser Division II. During that interim, fans and coaches held out hope that Porter’s injury was something minor, at least in the context of athletic injuries. Turns out it wasn’t, which led to this week’s announcement of a microdiscectomy in Porter’s lower back.

Now two things to know. First, Michael Porter Jr. is no ordinary first year college basketball player. He was the second ranked recruit in this year’s class. Meaning he could play for pretty much any basketball school in the country. Usually that means Duke or Kentucky or North Carolina or Kansas or some other blue blood program that stockpiles talent and serves as an unofficial feeder to the NBA. But Porter chose Missouri, a team that hasn’t been particularly relevant in several years and lacks the cache of the sport’s top tier. And this made the Tiger faithful painfully hopeful, hopeful that they might return to the NCAA Tournament and perhaps even a deep run through March. In all fairness, Missouri wasn’t Porter’s first official choice. He originally committed to Washington, where his dad was an assistant coach. Then his dad lost his job when the head coach was dismissed, he ended up getting hired at Missouri, and the rest is history. So remember, you cannot pay a college athlete, but you can hire his family as a way to recruit them to play for you. But I digress.

Porter will play basketball again. Just not in college. See, Porter was signed as a presumptive “one and done” athlete. In other words, everyone has assumed that he’d spend one year in college, then declare for the NBA draft, where he’d get picked somewhere in the top 10 and make enough money to buy a small island. That’s all part of the oddity of men’s college basketball, where the NBA mandates athletes be at least one year removed from high school before going pro. So athletes like Porter do their time in college – and yes, that’s an odd way to phrase it – then go to where they were destined to go in the first place.

Which makes a season ending injury in the first two minutes of the first game of the season particularly devastating, especially to fans that don’t regularly see talent like Porter – at least not wearing Missouri uniforms.

Despite the injury, it’s largely assumed Porter will still be picked in the top 10 of this year’s draft, assuming he enters. Right now, he’s saying all the right things – that he’s not sure, he cares about Missouri, and so on. But in all likelihood, next November Michael Porter Jr. will be wearing an NBA uniform.

So what should we take from this unfortunate incident, one that oddly is far more debilitating for Missouri fans than for the injured athlete himself? At the very least, it demonstrates the clear inefficiency of this whole process, where elite athletes are forced into a holding pattern while fans scramble to learn their team roster before it completely changes next season. Michael Porter Jr. was essentially gifting his services to Missouri, mainly because he either did that or sit out a year or go play in Europe until the NBA would allow him to enlist. And now, just two minutes in, now that his path to the NBA is established, he’s done with college sports. And let’s be honest, probably with college as well, since it’s hard to earn a bachelor’s degree in one year. Michael Porter Jr. was no more a Missouri Tiger than you or I. And he shouldn’t have been forced to be one in the first place.

Furthermore, Porter’s injuries will heal – at least after surgery they will. But imagine if they didn’t. If this kid lost his chance to earn a living at his craft because people felt it necessary for him first to play for free. For Missouri, or whatever college employed his father, it seems. It’s wrong at every level, and it’s certainly not the intent of college sports.

Fortunately for Michael Porter Jr., this story can still have a happy ending. Just don’t look for that in the Missouri record books.

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