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Lights, camera, action!
It’s been 16 months since Michael Porter Jr. played competitive 5-on-5 basketball in a live setting in front of a crowd and pundits who are ready to dissect the swingman’s game. That all changes Friday when he’ll make his highly-anticipated debut at Summer League in Denver’s opening matchup against the Phoenix Suns (8:30 p.m. EST, ESPN).
Porter’s absence from competitive basketball hasn’t shaken his confidence one bit.
“I just want to be the best player on the floor every time I step out there. That hasn’t changed,” Porter said following Denver’s first Summer League practice. “I don’t want to start slow. I’m expecting to dominate and that’s what I want to do.”
It’s fitting the Las Vegas, a city known for its glitz and glamour, will serve as a backdrop for Porter’s return to the court. At 6-foot-10, Porter looks like he was built in a basketball lab. He talks, acts and carries himself like a star, something he’s been since the high school and AAU circuit when he established himself as arguably the top recruit in his class.
He looks the part now too. The Nuggets’ weight training program for the last year has paid dividends as Porter now weighs 223 pounds, 15 pounds heavier than he was when he arrived in town last summer.
The word out of Denver over the last few months has been that Porter has looked like his pre-injury self on the practice court. He says he’s been pain-free for a while now and will have no restrictions beginning Friday in Las Vegas. Porter reportedly developed Drop Foot, which was a symptom of his two back surgeries and is currently wearing a brace on the lower part of his left leg to help stabilize it but had no problem rising and firing from the top of the key with a defender draped all over him as Monday’s practice wound down.
His high-arching three over the outstretched arm of 6-foot-9 Martin Krampelj was a brief reminder of Porter’s natural talent, which he’s continually flashed behind closed doors.
“It’s like watching 2K. I called my parents and told them that,” Jordan Davis said of being in the gym with Porter. “He’s the real deal. I’m not just saying that because I’m around him now and he’s my teammate. He’s the real deal. That dude is real talented. If he didn’t get hurt in college he would have arguably been the No. 1 pick. He’s real talented. A couple times in a row guys were all over him, fouling him, falling on him, and he’s shooting step-backs and making them. He’s elite. I’ll give him that. He’s a real talented player and a better person. I’m excited just like everyone else.”
Rumblings of Porter going shot-for-shot with the Nuggets’ best 3-point marksman last year, from Gary Harris to Jamal Murray, Malik Beasley and Monte Morris, were impossible to avoid and only helped fueled his hype train. Instagram posts and social media snippets of the forward in the gym over the last year have raised the tall expectations that the rangy forward will bring with him to Las Vegas even higher.
“I feel it a little bit,” Porter said of the hype around his debut. “Too much praise for a person is bad and too much hate for a person is bad too. So I try not to get too high or too low.”
He’ll need to take that philosophy with him to the desert. With the amount of time Porter’s spent away from competitive action, he’s not going to get his rhythm and flow back overnight.
Hyperbole will be impossible to avoid in Vegas too. If Porter plays well, he’ll be the missing piece to Denver’s championship puzzle. If he struggles, he’ll be labeled a bust and the teams who passed on Porter due to . Of course, none of those conclusions will define Porter’s season or even career. He just celebrated his 21st birthday back home in Missouri alongside friends and family after all.
The Nuggets hope he has a long career ahead of him and Summer League is just the beginning.
“Just for him to enjoy playing and don’t overthink anything,” Summer League coach Jordi Fernandez said about his hopes for Porter over the next two weeks. “Obviously there are a lot of things that will go through his head and that’s normal, but what I can tell you right now is he’s grown. He’s an older person now. You can tell with his approach and the way he works.”
Porter’s more mature now than when he came to Denver too. Road trips and a long regular season will help with that. The familiarity that Porter will have with some of his Summer League teammates like Jarred Vanderbilt, Brandon Goodwin and Thomas Welsh — the same ones that he talked trash to in 3-on-3 games played in front of only security guards and arena workers all season long several hours before Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murry took the floor — will help his return to the court as well. The five-man lineup of Porter, Vanderbilt, Goodwin, Welsh and Terence Davis, an athletic two-guard who went undrafted last month out of Mississippi, has already shown strong chemistry in practices and looks to be on track to start Denver’s Summer League opener together.
“Everybody’s just really solid. They’re high IQ players. Everybody just wants to win. We don’t have any guys with egos,” Porter said. “Nobodys going out there to play for themselves. I think that will make us a really good team.”
The Nuggets continued on their current and planned timeline as free agency began Sunday which triggered a league-wide spending frenzy. Denver committed around $200 million itself, $30 million of which went to Paul Millsap as the Nuggets picked up their team option for next season on the 34-year-old power forward. The other $170 million went to franchise point guard Jamal Murray, who the Nuggets moved quickly on to negotiate a rookie extension that will kick in ahead of the 2020-21 season.
Denver is on track to return its entire rotation from last season and will again be poised to challenge for a berth in the Western Conference Finals. Many around the league like to speculate that the Nuggets are still one piece away but from top to bottom the Nuggets will boast what’s arguably the most talented roster in the league.
If Porter is in fact Denver’s missing piece, the rest of the league should be put on notice.
“We had an amazing season. We took big strides,” Porter said. “I think adding me, I think I can do some things to help the team. But we’re a great team already. Guys are moving out of the West. We have a special chance to be a really special team in the West, on the whole NBA really.”
More observations from Denver’s first practice
Vlatko Cancar, Denver’s 2017 draft-and-stash second-round pick limped to center court to join his teammates at the conclusion of the team’s first practice and was seated with his left ankle elevated while the Nuggets ran through 5-on-5 drills. Fernandez said Cancar along with Vanderbilt only went through non-contact drills Monday for “precautionary” reasons. Cancar is a 6-foot-9 forward who averaged 10 points and 3.7 rebounds per game for San Pablo Burgos in Spain’s ACB League last season. The skilled 22-year-old could grab one of Denver’s open roster spots for next year.
Terence Davis has turned some heads over the last week thanks to his two-way ability and athleticism. Davis averaged 15.2 points for Mississippi last season and went undrafted but has found a home at least for Summer League in Denver. The 6-foot-4 guard turned down several two-way contract offers and the chance to get selected in the second-round so that he could choose his next destination and after a draft-night phone call with Nuggets president of basketball operations Tim Connelly, he decided to take his talents to Denver.
