Typically, the assistant coaching carousel is one worth paying attention to but not getting terribly caught up in. It's a transient business, with the average contract being one year long and the average length of stay at a single school not being much longer than a couple of years.
However, occasionally one hiring catches your eye and raises your eyebrow. Now, that eyebrow is raised due to Washington.
The Huskies have hired Michael Porter Sr. as an assistant coach to fill out their staff. It would be notable for the reason that Porter was most recently a women's basketball assistant coach at Missouri, as that leap simply isn't made all that often. But there's another reason why this is such an important hiring in the world of college hoops.
Porter is the father of Michael Porter Jr., an athletic 6-foot-9 wing who is currently ranked as the No. 3 overall player in the Class of 2017 according to 247Sports' composite ranking. The younger Porter is known as a superb scorer who is equally as adept at hitting 3s as he is at rising up and throwing down dunks on opponents. He is one of the elite players in the upcoming recruiting class, having already garnered offers from the likes of Duke, Kentucky and Kansas. And now, his father will be coaching with Lorenzo Romar and the Huskies, and you have to think that gives them an inside edge in his recruitment.
And to be fair, the Huskies likely already had that edge. Romar is the younger Porter's godfather, as he and the senior Porter are friends that were in each others' weddings. In fact, this is not the first time that Romar has offered to put Porter on his staff, as last year he offered the same job to Porter after now-South Dakota State head coach T.J. Otzelberger left the Huskies to go back to Iowa State. Porter's younger brother Jontay -- a consensus top-100 prospect in 2018 -- has already committed to the Huskies as well, although you have to wonder if that will end up playing a role in Michael's decision given that he will likely be a one-and-done player as long as the NBA's rules for early draft entry don't change in the upcoming collective bargaining agreement.
This also may have an effect on another top prospect in 2017, although that gets a bit more speculative in nature. Trae Young is widely considered one of the top three point guards in the upcoming recruiting class, with offers already from just about every big school in the country, much like Porter. Young and Porter have said in the past that they would like to play together in college, meaning that if Porter goes to Washington, Young could follow and create one heck of a duo. But that's getting way ahead of things.
A lot of this is generally speculative in nature. It's possible that Porter doesn't want to play for his father, and that he and Young won't play together. But the inverse is equally as possible, and given all of the factors at play here it's hard not to think that Washington may have just given itself a major leg up in the 2017 recruiting class with one single hiring of an assistant coach.
