INGLEWOOD — He bounced around the arena with a childlike joy, eager to start again. Not just this season, but his once-promising basketball career.
Kevin Porter Jr. is back in the NBA, this time with the Clippers. The 6-foot-6 former USC swingman knows this opportunity, his latest in a string of failed resurrections, is another chance to play the sport he loves at the highest level.
It’s another chance to show his talent. Another chance to repair his reputation, another chance to prove he has changed.
And maybe his last chance.
Porter has been dismissed, traded and suspended by one college team and three NBA teams for a series of incidents that has derailed his career up to this point. The talented, yet controversial Porter found himself on the outside looking in last year when he was waived by the Oklahoma City Thunder following his arrest on domestic violence charges.
Porter, 24, pleaded guilty in December to a lesser charge of misdemeanor assault and a harassment violation in connection with an incident in September 2023 that left his girlfriend, Kysre Gondrezick, with a fractured neck vertebra and a deep cut above her eye. He reached a plea deal that kept him out of jail, but also out of the NBA.
As part of the deal, Porter reportedly needed to complete a 26-week Abusive Partner Intervention Program, abide by a limited order of protection, attend court dates and have no further arrests. After a year, if Porter complied, he will be allowed to withdraw the plea, effectively clearing his criminal record.
And clearing his way back to the NBA.
“I’m just blessed to have this opportunity to be back doing what I love and being in L.A.,” Porter said during the Clippers’ preseason media day on Monday. “It’s just very beautiful. Just being back, that’s how I’m approaching it (this season.)”
Porter signed a two-year deal with the Clippers in the offseason after the team hired outside experts who investigated the allegations. Lawrence Frank, president of…
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