NEW YORK -- Stacey Porrini Clingan never got to see her son play high school or college basketball.
She died of breast cancer in March 2018 at age 42. Donovan, then 14, decided to channel his pain, passion and prodigious frame into basketball at Bristol Central High School and then UConn in her honor.
“I really didn’t take basketball seriously when she was here, I just played it for fun,” Donovan Clingan, now a 7-foot-2, 282-pound center, said last year.
“When she passed, I wanted a reason to make her proud and I wanted to be successful in some way,” he said. “So basketball it was.”
Porrini Clingan was with her son in spirit on Wednesday night when he was chosen No. 7 in the NBA Draft by the Portland Trail Blazers after his sophom*ore season under Dan Hurley at UConn. Hurley and Bill Clingan, Donovan’s father, were with him in the Green Room. Donovan hugged his father first.
“A lot of emotions,” Donovan Clingan told ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski on air ahead of the draft of his expected feelings once he got draft. “I’ll be able to say my mom’s proud of me and that’s going to be the most important thing for me.”
Clingan was one of two players from UConn’s second straight national championship team to get chosen in the lottery. Freshman guard Steph Castle went No. 4 to the San Antonio Spurs, marking the first time UConn had two players in the lottery in 12 years.
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Two other UConn players -- Rutgers transfer Cam Spencer and All-America point guard Tristen Newton -- could go later in the two-day draft.
“I really hope to hear everyone’s name called,” Clingan said Tuesday. “Everyone deserves to hear their name called because of how hard we’ve worked, all the winning we’ve done and how talented everyone is. Especially Tristen and Cam, they’re very very special people and they’re going to bring a lot of winning to an organization.
“And Steph, I’m really proud of him, how he came in as freshman and how he’s showing how elite of a player he is and I’m really excited to hear his name called.”
Porrini Clingan’s death left Clingan and his younger sister, Olivia, 18, without a mother, and their father, Bill, a single parent. Bill Clingan, a 6-6 bear of a man with an infectious smile, shouldered the responsibility of raising two children and balancing his son’s emerging basketball career with his own hectic work schedule as an operations supervisor at an electric company.
Bill Clingan said he and his son had to balance summer A.A.U. basketball with recruiting trips, school and work, as well as taking care of Olivia, who didn’t travel with them.
“He’s a mom and a dad for both of those kids, and does a terrific job with it,” said Tom Moore, a UConn assistant coach, who began recruiting Donovan Clingan when he was a freshman in high school.
When Donovan was born, he weighed 12 pounds and measured 25 inches from head to toe.
“He was basically a toddler,” his father said.
Bill Clingan said he and his wife noted that their son would grow in fits and starts, getting pudgy just before a growth spurt.
“He would gain some weight and then, all of a sudden, he would go up three inches,” he said.
Donovan Clingan was 6-8 by his freshman year of high school, and as he grew taller and taller, his height prompted the usual ribbing from his classmates.
“How tall are you? How’s the weather up there?” they would ask.
When his recruitment began to heat up in the summer of 2021, his father took vacation days so he could take his son on official visits to Michigan, Ohio State, Syracuse and, eventually, UConn. Moore began recruiting Clingan during his freshman season, and Hurley soon followed.
The coaches had never seen anyone “that big who ran that well, passed that well and with shooting touch and hands,” Moore said. “I remember Dan saying he was like a unicorn.”
After helping UConn win back-to-back titles by averaging 13.0 points, 7.4 rebounds and 2.5 blocks, Clingan declared for the Draft as expected.
He said he worked out for five teams, including the Atlanta Hawks, but wouldn’t divulge the other four.
Clingan said he’s looking forward to testing himself against the NBA’s best big men.
“I’m a competitor,” he said Tuesday. “I want to play against [Nikola] Jokic, I want to play against [Joel] Embiid, I want to play against all those guys. I want to play against the best of the best because that’s how you learn and that’s how you get better.”
Former Indiana and Georgia coach Tom Crean believes Clingan can make a big impact early in the NBA, especially defensively.
“The ability to play with both hands, defend with both hands, he’s got quickness, he’s got length,” Crean said on Sirius NBA radio.
“He’s been well-coached. certainly going back to high school and then what he’s done at UConn with Danny. That size, that mobility, he’s competitive and in a league right now that’s showing you’ve got to have great protection he would probably be the next guy to me because I think his upside is really good.”
And somewhere his mother is looking down with pride.
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Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter who covers Seton Hall and NJ college basketball for NJ Advance Media. You may follow him on Twitter @AdamZagoria and check out his Website at ZAGSBLOG.com.
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