There has been quite a groundswell around Michael Porter Jr., as the narrative around his career has completely shifted since his trade to Brooklyn. Over his time with the Nuggets, MPJ was thought to be a good, but not great role player, a solid third or fourth option, but little more than an elite floor spacer and shooter.
But that has all changed since the trade over the summer that sent him to the Nets. Now, Mike has become a focal point of an offense; he’s putting up monster numbers with great efficiency, and is actually impacting winning on a young, rebuilding team.
The intimation he and others have made countless times is that he plateaued with the Nuggets in his role, and he needed freedom to showcase the rest of his game and reach his potential. That’s largely what we’ve seen come to fruition in Brooklyn, and his play has lent credence to the idea that he could have done more if the Nuggets let him.
David Adelman pushed back a bit and defended his team and coaching staff (Adelman was an assistant to Michael Malone for Porter Jr.’s entire tenure) ahead of Denver’s first matchup with the Nets since trading Mike. He was full of praise for Mike and how he sacrificed to help the team win, and never got enough credit for his toughness.
But when asked about his role and if he was surprised at what Mike is doing for the Nets, Adelman pointed out that the team won a championship with a very effective two-man game (Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray), saying, “I think any time you win the whole thing, the role was appropriate,” and, “I thought we used him the right way. I’m sure he would disagree with me completely, which is ok. But we won a lot of games doing it that way.”
Nuggets a bit irked by Porter Jr. character arc
Adelman, of course, was nothing but complimentary of MPJ, Jordi Fernandez, the Nets, and everyone else involved, but you can tell there’s some annoyance under the surface. The Nuggets have obviously heard all the noise about how they held Mike back, how now he’s an All-Star, and how they essentially wasted his potential.
Based on Adelman’s comments, they’ve been hearing it quite a lot, and they have their own thoughts that aren’t exactly being voiced. He’s right. The Nuggets were an all-time elite offense, mostly because they had two better offensive players than Porter.
Could they have bent the offense to feed him more opportunities? Perhaps. But taking the ball away from Jokic or Murray would have been foolish and counterproductive to the ultimate goal of winning the championship. Denver already accomplished that goal once with MPJ, and only fell short in recent years due to health and lack of depth.
So, Adelman is spot on with his pushback here. The team’s job is to win games and try to be as successful an organization as possible. Growing Porter Jr. into a star would not have been the best path to making that a reality. The trade was clearly a win-win, as Adelman stated during his presser. Both sides got what they wanted, and should be better off moving forward.