In an alter­nate uni­verse, maybe Michael Porter Jr. is flash­ing that high ceil­ing for the Los Ange­les Clip­pers right about now.

But giv­en the med­ical staffs in this uni­verse, MPJ sort of doubts it.

“Their doc­tors didn’t think I would play bas­ket­ball again,” the Nuggets rook­ie recalled Wednes­day after­noon when asked about his expe­ri­ences with the med­ical staff of the Clip­pers, Denver’s oppo­nent in the semi­fi­nals of the NBA’s West­ern Con­fer­ence play­offs. “So I’m not sur­prised they didn’t pick me.”

The 6‑foot-10 for­ward out of Mis­souri was on the Clips’ radar dur­ing the run-up to the 2018 NBA draft. Instead, Los Ange­les select­ed Michi­gan State for­ward Miles Bridges and Boston Col­lege guard Jerome Robin­son with picks 12 and 13 — leav­ing Porter free to be snatched by Den­ver at No. 14.

Ear­li­er in the day, Clip­pers coach Doc Rivers said not tak­ing MPJ was a “bru­tal pass,” and that his med­ical staff cau­tioned against it.

Porter had under­gone surgery in Novem­ber 2017 to repair two bulging disks in his back, a con­di­tion that required a sec­ond pro­ce­dure in July 2018, sidelin­ing him for the entire 2018–19 campaign.

“I didn’t expect them to pick me,” Porter said of the Clip­pers, who’ll face the Nuggets on Thurs­day night in the first of a best-of-sev­en series inside the NBA’s bub­ble. “But I mean, it’s going to be fun to play against them, for sure.”

The 21-year-old for­ward aver­aged 9.3 points and 4.7 rebounds over 16.4 min­utes per game dur­ing this past reg­u­lar sea­son. Injuries and devel­op­ment have led to increased court time for the rook­ie, who’s aver­aged 12.0 points and 7.0 boards over 26 min­utes per game dur­ing his first sev­en post­sea­son appearances.