If you hadn't watched the Denver Nuggets play basketball this season, and didn't care enough to look at the conference standings, you'd think they ruined their future by trading Michael Porter Jr. to the Nets over the summer. This discourse on social media that makes it sound like the trade was a mistake is missing the bigger point.
Porter was a good player when he was in Denver. He helped the team win a championship less than three years ago. The motivation behind a trade wasn't that he was useless, but that the Nuggets needed to move off the contract that they doled out to him. Doing so freed up $17 million in cap space for this season alone.
Look at what Denver has done this season, even as the injuries piled up. The Nuggets sit No. 3 in the West with a 28-13 record, the same as the No. 2 Spurs. They've been without Nikola Jokić for a couple of weeks. Christian Braun and Aaron Gordon both missed a few weeks, and the former is out again. Cam Johnson has been out for three weeks with a bone bruise. Jonas Valančiūnas is out with a calf strain.
They're doing more than staying afloat.
Nuggets shouldn't want to take back Michael Porter Jr. trade
When you look at Porter's numbers in Brooklyn — 25.7 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and 1.0 steals per game — it's admittedly a little hard not to think about what it'd be like if he were still in Denver, but that's when you need to remind yourself that he's in a completely different situation.
Good on MPJ for seizing the opportunity of being the No. 1 option, increasing his trade value in the process, but he's doing so for a team that's won 11 games this season. No, the Nets aren't losing because of him; they're a young team. They didn't enter this season with any hopes of contending for a title.
The Nuggets did, though, and boosted their depth this offseason to help them return to the territory they were in when the 2022-23 season ended. Doing so wouldn't have been possible without shedding Porter's contract.
Johnson took longer than fans would've liked to acclimate to his new team, and then he got injured, making MPJ's absence feel a lot bigger than it is. It'd be premature to declare the trade a loss for the loss, considering where they are in the standings, and that the playoffs are still months away.
As for Porter, it genuinely is nice to see him doing well in Brooklyn. He didn't leave the Nuggets on bad terms; it was strictly business. He will always have a fan base in Denver. None of that changes the fact that the front office made the correct call in trading him.