Denver Nuggets: How Michael Porter Jr.’s looming return could affect the rotation

With Jamal Murray already out for most of the Denver Nuggets 2021-22 regular season, the loss of Michael Porter Jr. in early November to a back injury seemed to signal that this might very well be a lost campaign.

Nikola Jokic said, not so fast! The Big Honey has put together another MVP-caliber year and has kept his squad on pace to crack the over on their pre-season win total as we predicted.

If the Nuggets were wallowing in the play-in spots or out of the tournament altogether, one would have to think that MPJ would have simply sat out the rest of this campaign, but with the Nuggets all but assured a top four or five seed thanks to the Joker’s preposterously consistent excellence, reports have begun coming in of Porter Jr.’s impending return to the Nuggets lineup.

MPJ wasn’t exactly lighting it up before he played his last game back in November, and the 23-year-old has been no stranger to severe back issues before. There is definitely an argument to be made that he shouldn’t come back this season, instead focus on getting that back right and returning next year fully healthy so he can contribute like he did at the tail end of the 2020-2021 season.

But it’s all but confirmed that MPJ will indeed return to the Nuggets sooner rather than later this season, as Harrison Wind, DNVR reported last week that the 6’10” forward will be sent to start scrimmaging with the Nuggets’ G-League affiliate, the Gold, up in Grand Rapids.

Considering his worrisome history with back issues, the Nuggets are likely to bring him on slowly so that he’s ready for a full workload by the time the postseason rolls around, something that Jamal Murray could be ready for by that time too, according to Sam Amick, The Athletic.

Denver can use all the help they can get, especially with the team in the thick of the playoff race in what feels like the most open competition for the top spots that we’ve seen in some time.

In the 56 games since MPJ last took to the court, the Nuggets have been one of the better teams in the West as others have stepped up to fill the void around Jokic. With MPJ looking like he’ll be suiting up for the Nuggets by the start of April at the latest, let’s take a quick look at how the others in the rotation will be affected when the Mizzou product does make his return.

Denver Nuggets: How will Michael Porter Jr.’s return affect the starters?

In Michael Porter Jr.’s extended absence, other players have evidently had to step up to help Jokic keep the team afloat, and most of that help has come from the guys picking up MPJ’s slack in the frontcourt, most notably veteran forwards Jeff Green and Aaron Gordon.

MPJ’s return will give Jokic another sharpshooter to space the floor and give the big Cevapi some much-needed room to breathe.

We’d expect MPJ to slot in at the three to fill out the starting frontcourt with Jokic and Gordon. Gordon has been solid playing second-fiddle to his center, but he was not brought to the Rockies to be the second option on offense: ideally, he’d be the third or fourth option more often than not.

But he has been putting up 15.0 points a game on 51 percent shooting from the field while playing some decent defence as well. He hasn’t been quite as stingy as the Nuggets would like, however, and one clear positive for the return of Porter Jr. is that he will take some of the scoring burden off of Gordon, who will then be free to expend more energy on the defensive end where he’s more crucial.

Gordon was included on the three most-used lineups that featured MPJ before he went down, which means that Gordon is unlikely to see a drop in minutes, though his usage on the offensive end should go down and one would hope that his prowess on the defensive end should do the opposite.

Jeff Green aka Uncle Jeff is likely the one that will see his role affected the most by MPJ, as the veteran was seeing just 16 minutes a game while the latter was healthy, compared to over 26 minutes per night with MPJ out. Green has started nearly every game with Porter Jr. on the mend, so his return to the bench is all but certain.

That’s a positive for the Nuggets, too, though. For all of Porter Jr.’s deficiencies, he still gives the Nuggets a much higher ceiling and a better chance to win than the 35-year-old Green. Jeff is still a reliable shooter and a solid defender, but MPJ is way too talented to sit behind Green once he’s fully healthy.

Green as more of a veteran mentor who plays fewer minutes but comes in to keep the bench unit in check, maintain good defensive intensity, and knock down a few jimmys from time to time is the ideal scenario here. Not to mention keeping that veteran presence fresh for crucial moments down the stretch doesn’t hurt either, and he can also coach up young forwards like MPJ, Gordon, and youngster Zeke Nnaji as only a man with a decade and a half of NBA experience can do.

Considering Porter Jr.’s main contributions come by scoring the basket, backcourt guys like Will Barton, Austin Rivers, Bryn Forbes, and Bones Hyland will be asked to shoulder a lot less of the scoring load, though I doubt their minutes will be affected much.

Denver Nuggets: How will Michael Porter Jr.’s return affect the bench?

While it’s very possible that we see Michael Porter Jr. come off the bench in his first few games back for head coach Michael Malone and the Denver Nuggets, he’ll be in the starting lineup in no time. However, that doesn’t mean that MPJ’s return doesn’t affect the bench mob.

The Nuggets recently traded away two solid prospects in center Bol Bol and wing P.J. Dozier for a short term shooting fix in Bryn Forbes, who has done what he was brought in to do, though in very limited minutes. And while that was a disappointing move when you look to the future, the Nuggets did hang onto two other very exciting players instead.

They are 6’5″ small forward Davon Reed, who has bounced around the league since being drafted in the second round by the Phoenix Suns in 2017, and 6’9″ power forward Zeke Nnaji, who the Nuggets picked 22nd overall in the 2020 NBA draft.

Reed most recently shone in 20 minutes off the bench in a win over the Golden State Warriors where the Miami (Florida) alumnus put up 17 points on 6-for-8 shooting to go with three boards, a block, and a dime. Not too shabby at all.

The 26-year-old has consistently impressed when Malone has given him significant run, as evidenced by the fact that the Nuggets signed him to not one, not two, but three different 10-day contracts before signing him to a two-way contract for the rest of the campaign in January.

Malone has not been giving the New Jersey native consistent minutes at all, however: Reed played 40 combined minutes over the past two games, just eight over the four before that, and 68 over the four before that. One would have to think that his minutes would go down to a pretty minimal level with MPJ’s return to the starting lineup pushing Jeff Green to the second unit.

A video of Reed playing one on one with MPJ surfaced last week, and Mike Singer, The Denver Post, later asked Reed about it, with Reed saying that “Mike looked really good,” and that he was looking forward to his teammate’s return. Surely he can’t be too happy, as Porter Jr. is likely to push Reed right out of the rotation… though a spot in Denver’s top 14 for next year is not farfetched for Reed at all.

The other big guy that’s likely to take a hit with MPJ’s return is Zeke Nnaji, who’s been seeing 17.3 minutes per game since MPJ went down compared to just five minutes a night when MPJ was in the lineup in October and November.

Unlike Reed, Nnaji is still a very young prospect, and like Reed, he’s got a ton of potential for positive growth, so getting him out there on the floor a little more has been exciting to see.

He makes just a hair under one triple a game, but he does so at an alarmingly high 48 percent clip to go with his 53 percent mark from the field overall. His 1.5 offensive rebounds per game are nearly identical to Gordon’s 1.6 mark in about half of the minutes.

This kid is going to be G-O-O-D like Kanye’s old music, but MPJ’s return is likely to stifle his playing opportunities down the stretch here.

Malone has never been a big fan of playing really young guys, so with MPJ’s impending return, the Minneapolis native will likely have to wait until next season to really show us what he can do.

MPJ’s restoration to the lineup will no doubt boost the potential of this Denver Nuggets team in a year where the championship seems genuinely up for grabs between at least a half dozen teams. Getting his efficient scoring back for the run-in will be a boon, even if it does shake things up a little bit for a bench unit that could see a pair of players make big strides heading into next season.