Nuggets fans can breathe sigh of relief as owner strongly denies insane MPJ rumor

Many rumors, reports, and stories have come out about how things played out behind the scenes in Denver. It’s clear that the environment had become toxic due to the neverending battle between GM Calvin Booth and head coach Michael Malone.

Ownership felt that the situation had become untenable and they stepped in and made an unprecedented change, firing both Malone and Booth in the final week of the regular season. The team is in turmoil, but they have no time to feel sorry for themselves as they begin a massive first-round playoff series this weekend.

There are leaks coming from all sides now and it’s hard to tell exactly how much is true, who is at fault, and what the next steps are. But Josh Kroenke wanted to take back control of his franchise and overhaul the culture. 

How involved the Kroenkes will be in basketball decisions moving forward remains a big question. But one crazy piece of news that has come out in all this was a tidbit from a Jake Fischer piece on Marc Stein’s Substack last week.

Fischer noted that the team discussed moving Michael Porter Jr. ahead of the trade deadline, but the talks never got far due to the fact that MPJ and the Kroenkes share an alma mater, Missouri. For that strange reason, Fischer even stated that his sources, “struggled to envision ownership ever approving a deal that would send Porter away from the franchise.”

Josh Kroenke calls MPJ Mizzou rumor “completely false”

On Monday, in his press conference, Josh Kroenke addressed many things, including this disturbing and bizarre rumor. He refused to laugh about the story because of the serious nature of the allegations, but said the idea that he wouldn’t consider any trade that would help the team is “completely false”.

He added, “I'm not going to be green-lighting any trades around here when I don't see complete organizational cohesion and we're not maximizing the group we got.” That seemed to be his way of trying to explain why the team ultimately didn’t end up dealing Porter Jr. at the deadline or over the summer, but it certainly sounds like that’s on the table going forward.

Meddling owners can be the worst thing for a professional sports organization. The Kroenkes are far from perfect, but for the most part, they have hired smart people, and let them run the team. These past few days have been a bit of an about-face and the idea that ownership wouldn’t even consider dealing a player simply because of where he went to college was absolutely horrifying for any Nuggets fan to hear.

It’s good that Josh has quickly denied that claim and seems like he thought it to be just as ridiculous as fans reading about it. We’ll see how this situation unfolds with the playoffs and beyond, but MPJ is an obvious trade candidate this offseason if they want to upgrade the roster. 

Whether there’s a move out there to accomplish that goal or not remains to be seen, but at least we don’t have to worry about decisions being made - or not made - due to whether a player was a Missouri Tiger or not.