We all know that John Wall magically makes Otto Porter by a mechanism enigmatically known as the “Martell Webster Effect”. No one knows how it works, the nation’s leading scientists have performed several rigorous experiments and come to no conclusions, all we know is that it works, and it means Porter is a beast whenever he’s sharing the court with Wall.
Wall is dead now. He’s dead and buried six feet under, never to return. His knee simply gave up on him, and like a thoroughbred horse who can no longer race, he was put down. This is not good news for Porter. He has very little experience playing without simultaneously being the beneficiary of the Martell Webster Effect. Pundits across the nation were watching this game with great interest; how would he do without his safety blanket?
One game is not enough to draw conclusions from, but early results are promising. He scored 25 tonight without Wall mysteriously making him better. But how much would he have scored WITH Wall? 40? 50? We can’t know. All we can do is analyze the evidence we have, and the evidence is that Porter can, at least sometimes, be an above-average NBA player sans Wall. Let’s see what happens next game.