Evin Demirel: Bobby Portis Can Dominate NBA Hogs

Tonight, the NBA regular season tips off.

That means sports fans have yet another sport to try to keep up with as we enter into that annual, whirring early November football/baseball/hockey/basketball buzzsaw that can chew up and spit out objectives like “time management” and “not neglecting the children.”

Or maybe you don’t care much for the NBA, but you still want to know what your favorite Hogs are doing. In that case, you’re in luck. Here’s the CliffsNotes: Patrick Beverly is still with Houston, Sonny Weems is back in the NBA (Phoenix) after four years of learning Russian and tonight Bobby Portis will likely make his debut on national TV when his Chicago Bulls play against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Tomorrow, he’ll travel to Brooklyn where Joe Johnson is still holding down what projects to be a crumbling fort.

Speaking of Johnson, the man deserves some praise for what he has done in his 14(!) NBA seasons. He’s at the top of some of the all-time NBA Razorback stats categories Portis aspires to one day dominate. Portis got off to a good start in preseason, after averaging double digit points and rebounds, but will have a long way to go to catch NBA Arkansans in terms of total stats. Still, when it comes to a few per-game categories, he has a good shot at taking the top spot from the get go.

He would only need to average six rebounds a game, for instance, to surpass Oliver Miller in career per-game average:

NBA Career Averages Among Ex Razorbacks 

Blocks per game would be another category we should expect to see Portis rise quickly in the ranks, consider the No. 5 person here stands all of 6’2”.

Steals per game, though, will be a tougher nut to crack:

As will assists, since Portis stands 6’11” and will play mostly power forward or center.

As far as points per game, don’t expect Bobby Portis to get enough minutes to score double digits unless some of the four Chicago big men in front of him get injured. Still, he should put together an efficient enough rookie reason to break into the points per game Top 10:

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Like this? Check out more NBA Razorback rankings here. On BestOfArkansasSports.com, I will have rankings which include both Razorbacks and Arkansan natives like Scottie Pippen and Derek Fisher. 

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