When Kristaps Porzingis was drafted by the Knicks, he was seen as a long-term project. On one hand, he had all the tools needed to succeed in a league where floor spacing comes at a premium. On the other, he lacked the strength and experience needed to make an immediate impact for a franchise desperately looking for a glimmer of hope. It didn’t help that he was also trying to shake the all-too-easy comparison to Andrea Bargnani, even if it was misguided from the start.

Porzingis had his ups and downs during his rookie campaign, but it quickly became clear he has the ability to be an impactful player in the NBA sooner than anyone expected. He checked out as a who could do a little bit of everything on offense, which gave the Knicks something unique to build around for the future. While they haven’t yet surrounded him with the young talent you’d expect to see for a player of his caliber, he’s been significantly better in his sophomore season by bumping his numbers to 19.9 points, 7.4 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game.

The scary part: Porzingis still looks like he’s only getting started.

Some of it has to do with him being a 7-footer who can space the floor out to the 3-point line. By nature, it’s a tremendous luxury in today’s NBA because most power forwards and centers aren’t wired to aggressively close out on players like Porzingis on the perimeter. It’s not as if he only does it a couple of times per game, either. Beyond scoring as many points out of spot-ups , Porzingis averages 5.6 3-point attempts per contest — a higher rate than J.J Redick, Chris Paul and Kevin Durant — and knocks them down at a 37.9 percent clip.

Therefore, as long as the ball handler in the pick-and-roll can force the defense to react by making a strong move to the basket, it’s incredibly difficult to keep Porzingis off the 3-point line. It explains why 5.4 of his 3-point attempts per game are either

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Just watch how DeMarcus Cousins and Darren Collison defend the following action. Cousins doesn’t want to drop any lower in case Derrick Rose kicks it out to Porzingis at the top of the key, and Collison is basically caught in no man’s land. Rose works himself free for a pull-up just outside the key thanks to the gravity Porzingis provides.

Making Porzingis harder than most to contain in those situations is the fact that he is both a willing and capable passer. At 7-3, he can see over the top of nearly every defender he’s matched up against, so it’s easy for him to survey the court when players close out on him. If the ball handler in the pick-and-roll draws Porzingis’ defender — or, like many teams do, they decide to ICE the pick-and-roll (force the ball handler away from the screen and toward the baseline) — it usually means a guard has to rotate onto him.

From there, Porzingis can either shoot over them...

...or find the open man himself.

Porzingis scores 18.1 percent of his points in the pick-and-roll and ranks in the , which gives him a foundation any team can work with. While he only converts 45.5 percent of his overall attempts as the roll man, he makes up for it by stepping out to the 3-point line. As a result, his field goal percentage is lower than the likes of Karl-Anthony Towns, Blake Griffin and Anthony Davis, but his Effective Field Goal Percentage (56.8) is higher.

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However, what will help Porzingis become truly unstoppable is his ability to build off of that success by creating his own shot with regularity. He’s not the bruiser Towns is with his back to the basket, but Porzingis poses similar problems as Dirk Nowitzki and Yao Ming by being able to use his length to turn over either shoulder and hit fadeaways with little resistance. Although he can still improve on the block, some of which will come when his body matures, he’s averaging an encouraging 0.92 points per post-up possession this season to rank in the .

For example, facing-up and using his length to shoot over smaller defenders…

...brings back memories of Yao doing it to similar defenders.

Likewise, Porzingis breaking out fadeaway jumpers...

...is exactly what you’d expect to see from Nowitzki.

That’s not to say Porzingis will necessarily be a post scorer on the same level as Yao or Nowitzki, only that he has the potential to be a similarly difficult cover in time. His baseline as a pick-and-pop big who can get out in transition, move without the ball and attack the offensive glass gives him the tools to be a difference maker on any team.

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If he can then become more comfortable pulling-up when defenders closer out on him, taking smaller defenders to the post on switches and using his quickness and athleticism to make teams pay for putting traditional bigs on him, the sky becomes the limit — especially when you factor in how he can pull off moves in isolation like this:

And this:

Porzingis must continue to develop before he’s capable of carrying a team as the No. 1 option, but the important part is he’s getting there far quicker than anyone ever imagined. His height and shooting stroke always made him an intriguing prospect, and he’s now beginning to fine tune the parts of his game that will turn him into one of the toughest matchups in the NBA.

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The question then becomes when the Knicks will feel comfortable handing him the keys to the offense. With two ball-dominant players alongside him, Porzingis currently ranks third on the team in usage rating. He’s also logging only 39 percent of his minutes at center, , which is where he poses the most problems for opposing teams. The sooner they recognize that, the brighter their future gets.