Denver Nuggets: Michael Porter Jr will be on full display next season
In only his second full season, Michael Porter Jr has proved himself as one of the league’s best young scorers, averaging 19.2 points per contest and hitting 54 percent of his shots and 44 percent from behind the arc.
And after the Jamal Murray injury, he has seamlessly become the second option of his top-four seeded playoff team, averaging 24.4 points per contest on even better shooting numbers.
His game isn’t without flaws as he struggles to defend on the perimeter or distribute the ball, but there’s no such thing as a perfect player, let alone at age 22. On top of that, Jamal and Jokic are the clear distributors on this team, MPJ isn’t asked to orchestrate the offense, he’s asked to finish it.
Heading into next season, MPJ will be able to expand this post-Murray injury sample size to a full season and he can take another leap in his third full season on the court. Will he come in to the year as a better distributor? A better scorer? A better defender?
While Denver Nuggets Twitter can sometimes be harsh on scorer, he’s still very young and has plenty of development left in his 6-foot-10 frame. And imagine if he shows any progress of defense, all of a sudden, the Nuggets have two long, athletic wings in he and Aaron Gordon, and then it’s a they’re looking pretty solid to come out of the West.
The future is bright for the Nuggets and part of its shine comes from their 2018 Draft steal in MPJ.