Is Michael Porter Jr. destined to become Mikko Porter Jr.?
The former Nuggets wing forward is living his best Jerami Grant life in Brooklyn, taking the bulk of the shots for a bad team and putting up career-high numbers — All-Star caliber numbers — in the process. Our old pal MPJ went into Friday night’s games averaging 25.7 points and 7.3 rebounds per game while draining 39.6% of his 3-point tries.
The Nuggets traded Porter to the Nets this summer as a salary dump. But it was one of those trades that’s working out for both sides, in hindsight: Denver was 20-6 as of Friday afternoon, the best 26-game start to a season in franchise history. Team Grading The Week likes MPJ as a player and a dude, but moving one of the team’s big contracts was necessary to improve the Nuggets’ roster for the marathon of the regular season and, more importantly, for the playoff run to come. Nikola Jokic Era 1.0 had reached the end of the road after a stunning playoff exit at the hands of Minnesota in 2024 and a hard-fought seven-game-series loss to eventual champ Oklahoma City in the second round this past spring.
Remember to think of the MPJ trade this way: Another wing forward, Cam Johnson, was the only player who came back from the Nets in return. But moving the Porter contract off the books gave the Nuggets salary cap room to acquire Bruce Brown, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Jonas Valanciunas. It was, in essence, a 4-for-1 swap, a deal that landed Denver four good players at the cost of one very good one — albeit a very good one who was your third or fourth option on offense.
MPJ is the Nets’ offense now, more or less, and good for him. Although, lately, he might be playing a little too well. The Nets (7-19 as of Friday) are in tank mode, and with MPJ averaging almost 30 points per game (29.5) in December, Brooklyn started the month by winning four out of six.
MPJ’s newest NBA trade rumors — D.
As a result, and this is the part that makes the basketball wonks on the GTW crew nervous while the hockey guys point and snicker, because MPJ is making the Nets watchable and competitive, whispers are bubbling out East that the former Nugget might get traded again — and soon. The reason? Moving MPJ could mean selling high on a guy putting up career numbers, while flipping him in order to snatch more draft picks in return while also improving Brooklyn’s lottery odds. It’s loopy logic, but we’ve seen crazier scenarios play out in The Association.
“We have one pick in 2026, and we hope to get a good pick,” Nets owner Joe Tsai said on a podcast earlier this year. “So you can predict what kind of strategy we will use for this season.”
Frankly, it’s starting to give us a little shiver of deja vu. See, last January, the Avalanche shipped one of their title-winning supporting pieces, forward Mikko Rantanen, out to Carolina when contract extension talks stalled, saying it gave them flexibility to add more depth pieces around Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar.
Which it did, and having the Moose in the Eastern Conference felt far enough away to make all sides happy.
Only, as we know, all sides weren’t. So Rantanen wound up being dealt again last season, with the Hurricanes sending him to the worst place imaginable for Denver fans — the Dallas Stars. We don’t need to remind you what happened after that.
Memo to Mr. Tsai: If you are going to try to flip MPJ for more picks, could you at least flip him to a team in the Eastern Conference? Just to be on the safe side? Many thanks in advance.