4 Stars the Denver Nuggets could trade Michael Porter Jr. for this summer
By Ben Handler
The season didn’t end the way that the Denver Nuggets hoped with a second-round playoff loss to the Timberwolves. That kicked off a long offseason that has fans and media members pontificating about roster changes - potentially big ones. But as fun as it is to speculate and rumor monger, the Nuggets don’t exactly have a lot of realistic avenues to making big moves.
They’ve got limited draft capital and uninspiring picks, young players who haven’t proven anything in the league, and veterans who are part of the team’s core or hold little to no value. The only player on the roster who has some obvious intrigue on the trade market is Michael Porter Jr.
MPJ has been a critical part of the team’s success in recent years and has continued to grow into his role as a knockdown wing shooter at 6’10” and still just 25 years old. But he floundered in the Wolves series and is set to make $115 million over the next three seasons and for better or worse, he’s become an up-and-down glorified role player on a max contract in Denver.
If the Nuggets want to go star-hunting, it’s MPJ or bust
These factors make Porter Jr. the obvious candidate to be traded to restructure the roster this offseason. He is still a good young player with a rare and valuable skillset and will thus have value on the trade market. He could blossom in a bigger role on another team and could find that opportunity on a number of teams.
Most speculation around trading MPJ would be for the Nuggets to balance the roster by taking on multiple players on smaller contracts to bolster the team’s depth and shore up some positions of weakness. But what if the Nuggets go the other way and want to use MPJ and his big salary to add another star player to the roster?
One could argue that the team is on the cusp of being the clear favorite in the NBA. If they could add one more true star to the core of Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and Aaron Gordon, the team could be primed to take home multiple titles over the next few seasons. It would be a crazy risk, but it’s certainly one worth exploring.
Let’s start in the Big Apple with a team with their own championship aspirations.