Denver Nuggets: Why hasn’t Michael Porter Jr. signed an extension?

When teams have a young, talented player coming off a rookie contract, they’re always eager to re-sign them as fast as possible. The league even helps teams by letting them extend the player a full calendar year before their contract is up.

That should be the case for Michael Porter Jr. and the Denver Nuggets.

While MPJ isn’t a superstar like Trae Young or Luka Doncic, he’s talented enough to warrant an extension. But free agency has been and gone and there hasn’t been any news about a possible extension for the former Missouri product.

Mike Singer, The Denver Post reported not long after the Nuggets were eliminated from the playoffs that Tim Connelly was eager to get a contract extension done, saying that it has been the team’s MO to sign players early.

Well, we’ve missed the “early” part, what’s going on?

Denver Nuggets: Why might there be a delay in Michael Porter Jr.’s extension?

Michael Porter Jr. is one hell of a player and at only 23-years-old, he has plenty of upside.

Following the Jamal Murray ACL injury, Michael Porter Jr. averaged 22.8 points a night while hitting 55 percent from the floor, 45 percent from 3-point range, and 86 percent from the free throw line. He took on the role as the second option behind Nikola Jokic and excelled.

Building on that, he’ll likely be taking the reigns as the second option for all of next season. If he can replicate his post-Jamal injury productivity, he could be in store for a huge season in 2021-22.

Because of his play and soon-to-be larger role, MPJ probably sees himself as a max player. His full max, coming off a rookie contract is five years, $168 million.

One of the reasons we might not be hearing him signing on the dotted line is because he’s not getting offered the max.

If Connelly and the Denver Nuggets brass were offering him his max, it’d really start to cramp the team’s salary sheet after this next season. It’d mean MPJ, Jamal, and Nikola Jokic are all on their max deals, and that’s before trying to re-sign Aaron Gordon next season.

Plus, MPJ isn’t without his injury concerns. He missed his rookie season with a back injury and reaggravated it during the 2021 playoffs.

As Bobby Marks, ESPN wrote just before free agency, the Denver Nuggets are probably hesitant to pay MPJ the full max given these health concerns.

However, there are plenty of ways to protect the team from injuries, the best place to look would be any of Joel Embiid’s contract extensions. As Marks writes:

"“The structure of [Embiid’s rookie] extension protected Philadelphia in Years 2-5 in case Embiid suffered an injury to his feet or back that caused him to miss significant time. The Nuggets could do the same with Porter’s contract.”"

One of those possible restrictions for MPJ would be an Exhibit 3, or a prior injury exclusion, which would dig into the contract if the player injures himself. This doesn’t simply mean any injury though, the two parties could make it so the Exhibit 3 only triggers if Porter re-injures his back, for example.

This, while ideal for the Denver Nuggets, doesn’t give MPJ the most financial security and it’d only help the Nuggets if the worst-case scenario were to happen. With how talented MPJ is, he could take it to restricted free agency next offseason and there’s likely going to be several teams willing to pay him his max with no limitations.

Denver Nuggets: When will we see a Michael Porter Jr. extension now?

Since we haven’t heard anything thus far, we might be entering a very high stakes game of chicken between the Nuggets front office and Michael Porter Jr.

Connelly has probably held strong on offering the max (or a little less than) in exchange for some injury protection. MPJ likely wants the max without any conditions, not because he doesn’t trust his ability to stay on the court, but just for greater financial security.

If Porter takes it into next offseason and tries to go the restricted free agency route, he’ll be running the risk that there even is another team out there willing to pay him his max (note that his max from another team would only go up to four years, not the five he can get from Denver).

At the end of the day, if Connelly guarantees more money in a five-year extension than any other team would be able to guarantee in a four-year deal, MPJ should take it. That’s probably going to be the sticking point but since this Nuggets front office has preached taking care of its own, it can promise Porter the most amount of money while keeping its drafted talent on the roster.

It sucks from MPJ’s point of view, he runs the risk of losing money just because he unfortunately has injury concerns, but that’s the system we’re in.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a Porter extension before the season starts. The deadline for rookie extensions is one day before opening night, so instead of this huge game of chicken running into next season, we’ll likely know before the season kicks off.

If Porter hasn’t signed a deal before that deadline, then Denver Nuggets fans have to really wonder what’s going on: is Connelly low-balling Porter? Is Porter thinking about taking his qualifying offer to get out of Colorado? Or is there a mid-season trade involving Porter coming up?