“When things like that happen,” Porter tells me of landing his new extension, “that’s kinda when you think back to when people were really saying I wasn’t gonna be able to play again.” A predraft medical report filed by the Clippers’ team doctor now lives in infamy. “It was brutal for us,” then-Clippers head coach Doc Rivers said during the 2020 playoffs, as Porter and the Nuggets were in the process of knocking his team out of the second round. “We had [him] on our board, just the medical report—the red flag was so hot.” Word got around. Eleven other teams declined the opportunity to draft Porter before the Clippers passed on him twice: first for star-in-the-making Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (which, fair enough) and then for Jerome Robinson, who isn’t currently on an NBA roster.