I've no doubt Bender has been high on scout's radar for a long time, I just think Porzingis helped him staying there a bit longer, he hasn't shown much in the limited minutes he played in his own league.
Here's some stats comparison, Porzingis at Bender's age would be 2013-14 season in ACB:
2013-14 14.9min, 6.7pts, 2.8rb, 0.3ast, 0.9blk, 0.476%
This is Benders:
2015-16 14.5min, 5.5pts, 3rb, 0.75ast, 0.89blk, 0.466%
So they put similar numbers at the same age. However, Porzingis was playing in a better Spanish league, the next year Porzingis played 6 more minutes but all his stats had gone up by 50-70%. If Bender stays in Tel Aviv for another year and put up similar production then I'd be more ok for Angie to pick him at 3.