Writer’s note: It is a tradition here at Stiffs to memorialize important members of the organization when they leave. Unfortunately, this Summer has been the busiest of my life and I simply have not had the time. I did not want Mike to be skipped in the tradition however and so, two months late, I’ve finally got around to writing his goodbye article.
Bridges, that was the name that Denver Nuggets fans were abuzz with at the start of the Summer in 2018. It didn’t really matter which Bridges (or so we thought back then), but one of the two guys (Mikal & Miles) with the last name Bridges was the ideal fit for the Nuggets come the draft. Nikola Jokic had proven to be the centerpiece of the next era by leading the Nuggets within a game of the playoffs and Jamal Murray had seized the starting role as the young point guard on the team. The big and small was set for the Nuggets starting lineup. Now they needed the wing. They needed the guy who could score and play defense and complement the young core that was growing in Denver. The Bridges’ seemed to fit the bill more than anyone and only needed a little wishful thinking from the fans to convince themselves one of them would be available at pick 14.
As it turns out, that would not be the case. Mikal went tenth overall and Miles went twelfth. However, something curious was happening in the lottery. An ultimate high risk, high reward player was still on the board. That player was Michael Porter Jr. and when pick fourteen rolled around, the Nuggets took the risk. Porter was the second rated overall prospect on ESPN 100 coming out of high school in 2017. He had a deadly shot, athleticism to spare and a wirey 6’10” frame that brought comparisons to Kevin Durant. Unfortunately, just one game into his college career at Mizzou he sustained a lower back injury and would miss the entire regular season before playing sparingly in two games of the NCAA tournament. When evaluated by NBA medical staffs pre-draft, the Los Angeles Clippers medical team thought he’d never play basketball again.
Indeed, there was reason for concern medically, but the Nuggets were willing to take the risk and play the long game which they immediately had to do with Porter undergoing a second back surgery shortly after they drafted him. He’d miss the entire 2018 season. The whispers grew louder. Maybe the Clippers were right, maybe the Nuggets made a huge blunder, he’ll never play a game. Denver Meanwhile was suffering at the small forward spot. During the year MPJ sat out, the Nuggets returned to the playoffs for the first time in six seasons and even won their first round matchup with the San Antonio Spurs. The weaknesses with having Will Barton start at the three reared their heads in the second round. The Nuggets were undersized and couldn’t defend bigger players on the wing. In the end the player that tilted the scales out of Denver’s favor and caused them to lose in the second round of the playoffs was Portland Trail Blazers role player Rodney Hood, who just so happened to play small forward.
Denver addressed the weakness immediately in the offseason by adding Jerami Grant via trade though Torrey Craig, perhaps Denver’s best wing defender, was still starting. Mike made his debut off the bench on Halloween 2019 and scored fifteen points in just under twenty-one minutes. You’d think that would have made him a rotation regular but instead he was in and out of the rotation and getting spot minutes until Christmas. The Nuggets tried playing small again after it was clear Craig’s shooting struggles were too great for him to remain a starter and when Paul Millsap went out they had to adjust for a couple games. Grant and Mike got a start against Sacramento the day after Christmas. It was just Grant’s third start of the season, and Mike’s first. The Nuggets won by five while their starting forward combo combined for 37 points, 8 rebounds, 2 blocks and a steal.
Then March 11, 2020 came along. Rudy Gobert tested positive for COVID-19 right before tipoff between the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder. The game was cancelled, meanwhile the Nuggets played the final contest of that evening against the Dallas Mavericks. The NBA wouldn’t play another game until late July after they descended on the Disney World Bubble to complete the season. While this obviously had far reaching impacts well beyond the game of basketball, for MPJ it was a chance to get four more months away from his back surgery, four more months of recovering but also an abrupt halt to his comeback tour. One had to be concerned that the progress the Nuggets and Porter were making would get stalled. As it turned out…one need not be concerned.
Porter was the star of the Nuggets seeding play in Orlando. He started every game save for one (the final and extra meaningless game of seeding play), scored double figures in every contest, recorded double-doubles in four of the seven games and scored thirty or more twice. Every time Mike was on the court you couldn’t help but keep your eyes glued to him. Every time he put up a shot it felt like it was going in (and 55% of the time it did). The Nuggets as a team didn’t perform that well during what were pretty low stakes games, but no one cared. Mike had arrived.
MPJ was the missing piece
— Adam Mares (@Adam_Mares) August 5, 2020
The playoffs didn’t bring the same boon the seeding games did unfortunately. Porter’s defense was very much a work in progress and it didn’t take long for Michael Malone to go back to the security of starting Torrey Craig even if he was being wholly ignored by the opposition at the three point line. When Mike went cold from the outside as well in the second round, there just wasn’t a ton of motivation to start him. The Nuggets ended up losing to the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals but they headed home from Orlando knowing there was a new ace up their sleeve.
The following season Mike got better. He started almost every game of what ended up being a condensed schedule. He shot 45% from three, averaged over 31 minutes a game and set career highs pretty much across the board, most of which still stand today. When the Nuggets acquired Aaron Gordon midseason to replace GRant who left in free agency, they found the defensive forward ying to Mike’s offensive explosiveness yang. Denver was rolling, they looked unstoppable…and then Jamal Murray tore his ACL. That altered the course of the franchise greatly. One would think in the immediate aftermath Mike would be the beneficiary of the sudden opening in scoring opportunities but that just wasn’t the case. In the sixteen regular season games post Murray’s injury Porter scored over twenty just three times. The injuries continued to mount for Denver and they headed into the playoffs starting Facundo Campazzo and Austin Rivers in the backcourt.
Porter picked up the slack in the first round. He scored over 25 points in games 1, 5 & 6 and finished the series second on the team in scoring behind Nikola Jokic. He was absolutely vital to the Nuggets during that series and Denver likely loses it without him. In the second round though, facing Denver fans’ old draft boo Mikal Bridges, Porter was less effective. He scored 20 points only once and looked off. He wasn’t the only one. The Nuggets were unceremoniously swept out of the playoffs by the Phoenix Suns in the second round.
The following season there was high hopes for Porter. With Murray going down late in the previous season it was understood Jamal would need a large portion, if not all, of the ’21/’22 season to recover from ACL surgery and thus MPJ became the natural person to turn to when it came to picking up the scoring load. The season started though and Mike didn’t look right. His shooting was abysmal, he didn’t seem to have any explosiveness when going for rebounds, he was a complete traffic cone on defense, even more than usual. Simply put, he looked hurt…and he was. After nine games into the season, the Nuggets announced Porter would undergo a third back surgery and was likely to miss the rest of the season. That’s exactly what happened, another lost year in the NBA due to back issues.
The ’22/’23 season was where it all finally came together. Porter was ready to go from the jump and played thirty-five minutes on opening night. He was looking like his old self, canning threes at above a 40% clip and almost never scoring below double digits. In mid-November he scored 31 against the Chicago Bulls while shooting 6/9 from outside. Unfortunately his progress hit a snag in the form of a foot injury causing him to miss about a month right around the holidays. Three games after he came back he put up 30 on the Sacramento Kings. He’d score under double digits just four times for the remainder of the season and went into the playoffs averaging 17.4 points per game with 41.4% shooting from three. The Nuggets headed into the postseason as the top overall seed in the West.
It was certainly not Mike’s best run of games in the postseason that year but he was still vital to a team chasing the ultimate goal. He was very strong in the first round against Minnesota, ramping up his efforts on the glass while still regularly putting up double digit scoring numbers. Against the Phoenix Suns he was a bit of a mixed bag, losing minutes at the ends of games so that Michael Malone could utilize a stronger wing defender in Bruce Brown. That was more or less the story in the Western Conference & NBA Finals as well. Still, too much was made of Mike “struggling” in the postseason that year. With the exception of the NBA Finals he still was a double-digit scorer. He damn near averaged a double-double against the Lakers and he had big moments in every series. More than anything, when it was all said and done, Michael Porter Jr. was a champion and anyone who thinks he wasn’t vital to that happening is foolish.
In the two seasons that followed the title run, Mike became a bastion of, believe it or not, health. Perhaps motivated to put to rest any concerns about his injury history, Porter played in 81 of 82 games in the ’23/’24 season, missing only one because he forgot his shoes. Last season it was similar sans equipment issues but with a couple minor dings on the injury report. Still, Mike played 77 of 82 games. By all accounts, he’s been as reliable as any player in the league on the health front the past two seasons. Meanwhile, he’s continued to be an above 40% three point shooter hovering between 15-20 points a game. He’s been a very solid starter for the Nuggets.
The problem for Denver was they were paying him as a max salary player, as one of three players meant to be the leaders of the team. Where Murray and Jokic ascended, either in the playoffs or just all the time, Mike plateued. He is still a fantastic player and as good of a shooter as anyone in the league, but scoring isn’t Denver’s problem. Mike’s lapses on defense oftentimes put the Nuggets in compromising positions. He found himself consistently being targeted in pick and rolls and switches and without a player who specializes in helping on defense at the rim (at least when Peyton Watson is on the bench) the blowbys that Mike would give up had no other mitigating factors to prevent it from becoming an easy layup.
Ultimately, Mike being specialized on the side of the ball that is Denver’s strength and the high cost of having that specialty became an issue Denver needed to change. On June 30th, it was announced the Nuggets agreed to trade Porter to the Brooklyn Nets for Cam Johnson. Johnson is less specialized and better able to help on defense. He works best off ball and has a feel for moving without the ball that will work fantastically with Jokic. Perhaps above all else, he puts up similar production (though in different ways) at $17 million less per season than Porter. The move gave Denver the financial flexibility they needed to go out and acquire the depth that was so sorely missing from their team last season.
It wasn’t that Mike was a bad player and while he is expensive he isn’t a complete albatross of a contract. Ultimately he was just the piece that was the most movable and afforded the most opportunity to improve the team in multiple ways. His time in Denver is over but it should never be forgotten. Fact of the matter is, Michael Porter Jr. is as big a part of Denver’s championship run as anyone else save for Jokic. It took a team effort, it took each player filling a specific role and Mike was always willing to do that. As a high school star and a guy who can easily put up 25 points if he’s getting 25 shots a night, it wouldn’t be surprising if Mike had been vocal about wanting a bigger role but he rarely ever brought it up. He was willing to do what it took to help the team win.
Most, myself included, will describe the Porter trade as a positive for the Nuggets, particularly when considering the move and how it improved the roster holistically. That doesn’t mean it isn’t bittersweet though. No, I’m not a fan of Mike’s lapses on defense and yes, I wish he would say less on podcasts, but I fully recognize what he did for this franchise and how big of a piece he was to winning a title. It’s always sad when a staple leaves a team and Mike is no different. He is a champion and he always will be just like he is a Nugget and he always will be. Thank you MPJ, for everything you did for this franchise. Yeah Mike!
