Final no from the Celtics point of view.
Celtics have two sf that need minutes. Where does Porters fit?
Yes he can play some minutes at PF but he should not be a PF full time.
Sure he could, or Crowder or Brown eventually, take your pick. A lot of teams, and many of the top teams, play a traditional SF at the 4 for large portions of the game. It's been this way for several years, and Stevens has said for quite some time that he'd like to be able to play that way. more, but he doesn't have the personnel, so instead he runs out three guard lineups with Crowder at the 4. Porter is starting at the 4 in Washington at this point, and they close the game with him there too.
And outside of LeBron and Green, which team has been successfully outside playing just a few minutes a game?
Is he the new Barnes on this site to be the PF?
Maybe? I mean, we can pretend that Jerebko isn't getting a lot of minutes as is, and that Stevens hasn't said in the past that he feels the roster doesn't have enough swings, which is Porter and Crowder's position. The reason that people bring up players like Barnes, or suggest Crowder would move to the four if we got Hayward, is because Stevens has shown a willingness, if not preference, to have two of those players on the court at the same time. And as to being this year's Barnes -- last year Porter shot better than Barnes, and this year it isn't close. And he rebounds too. So Porter is a better version of Barnes. Does he have the je ne sais quoi to be at least a number two scoring option? That I can't say. But his game fits very well into what the Celtics are trying to do, and we might not be able to get Cousins or Griffin or Hayward or George or Butler. And I'd rather dump a lot of money into Porter's lap than the lap of Nerlens Noel.
There are only so many choices to improving the team next summer. Porter shouldn't be the first choice, but he shouldn't be that far down the list. Or we should just decide we're content with the current squad, and hope to get major steps forward from Brown, Smart, and Olynyk, and that one of our rookies is already NBA ready.