I feel like Bobby Portis has probably had Kevin Garnett comparisons thrown at him for a long time, likely since high school. I’m too lazy to look up his draft profile right now, but a ctrl+f for “Kevin Garnett” on that profile has gotta turn up a minimum of five results, right? Because the vibe I’m getting from Bobby Portis is a serious Kevin Garnett vibe, and my vibes are rarely in error unless my overclocked, radiation-emitting microwave is messing with my vibe sensors. Which it definitely isn’t right now because I unplugged it (it was getting a bit tiresome to lance off multiple grapefruit-sized tumors from my torso every night before bed).
The difference between Portis and KG is that Portis has legitimate three-point range. He’s also not an all-time defense player…yet. He definitely looks intense enough to be a good defender. That’s actually the first step to playing good defense: playing with intensity. That’s why players like Jabari will never be good defenders, because they don’t approach the game with intensity.
It’s possible that Portis actually plays with passiveness and not intensity. I don’t subject myself to enough Wizards games to find out, but his crazy bugged-out eyes certainly suggest that he is 100% locked into the game at all times. That’s what makes him KG-esque in my mind. The appearance of being totally insane and just one dirty boxout away from punching every single player, ref, fan, scorekeeper, and usher in the entire arena.