The feeling about Michael Porter Jr. in the Nuggets' locker room has shifted

 

Paul Millsap couldn’t wait to get to Sin City this summer.

It wasn’t the year-round pool weather, or craps tables that were summoning him to the Las Vegas Strip. Millsap wanted a front row seat at Thomas & Mack Center to see firsthand whether or not a certain Nuggets rookie’s talk was cheap.

“Mike’s been talking all year, so I’ll definitely be at Summer League,” Millsap said the morning after the Nuggets fell to the Trail Blazers in Game 7. “He’s very confident in his game. He should be. I like his mentality and his attitude and his approach to the game of basketball, so I’m excited to see what he’s got.”

Michael Porter Jr.’s Nuggets debut obviously got postponed when a knee injury in the lead-up to the Las Vegas showcase sidelined the 21-year-old for a few weeks. But now on the cusp of the Nuggets’ preseason opener against the Trail Blazers, the anticipation and uncertainty that many of his teammates felt at the onset of the offseason around his game has evolved into an endorsement.

“I’ve seen a lot of growth from the last scrimmage we had before we got to training camp, and watching him in camp he’s shown a lot of maturity,” Millsap said last week. “He’s picking his spots, he’s doing a lot better. And that’s all you can ask from a young guy.”

Those feelings towards Porter — around how his game has developed since the Nuggets drafted him 14th overall in 2018 and his maturity — seem to be reciprocated throughout Denver’s locker room.

The Nuggets were eager to see just what the rookie could do after he spent most of last season in street clothes. Now, there’s a clear mutual respect between Porter and the rest of a roster which helped drive Denver to 54 regular season wins and a berth in the Western Conference semifinals last year.

“He’s going to make shots. Just to have him on the court, he’s attacking the glass, he’s just going to the ball, he’s bullying people,” said Nikola Jokic. “He’s going to be really good.”

No one has ever doubted Porter’s talent. He was regarded as a top-2 recruit in his draft class and a serious contender for the top overall pick entering his freshman season at Missouri before back injuries and a subsequent surgery sunk his draft stock.

Since the Nuggets drafted him, Porter has been relegated to a practice jersey watching from Denver’s sideline for the last year. When he slips on the Nuggets’ blue and white threads for the first time tonight he’ll play in his first game since March 16, 2018. That’s nearly 19 months away from the bright lights, fans, and real expectations.

His confidence hasn’t wavered one bit.

“It’s been a crazy journey. I think mine is just beginning,” Porter said on the eve of his debut. “It’s going to be a good story at the end of it all, but I never really was too worried about it because some things you just can’t control. I could just control what I did every day at rehab, what I did on the court, and the rest is up to God, really. I just did my part and I know it will be a good story one day.”

“My feeling is that I’m going to go in there and kill it.”

The Nuggets, as they should, have done their best to temper expectations for Porter throughout training camp. Even though Porter has been around the team for well over a year, he’s still a rookie, let alone one that’s trying to lock down a rotation spot on a Western Conference contender at a crowded small forward position.

There will be times this season where Porter looks like the presumptive top-2 pick who can get any shot on the floor that he wants. On occasion, Porter will also look like he doesn’t belong in the Nuggets’ rotation. That’s life for most first year players.

“I think he’s going to realize that this is going to be the hardest thing he’s ever done,” Michael Malone said. “He’s no longer the best player in every gym he walks into and I want to see how he handles that. We’re going to help him handle that obviously.”

His defense still leaves much to be desired, but Nuggets coaches continues to stress to Porter that he has the tools and length be an elite defender. Porter is still trying to get a handle on Denver’s defensive concepts and terminology, and his gaffes on that end of the floor showed up often during the Nuggets’ film session on Sunday the morning after their scrimmage in Colorado Springs. But that’s to be expected for someone still as green as Porter.

“We all know how talented he is,” Malone said. “Now can he go out there and do it on a consistent basis.”

Still, the flashes of his elite skill-set are impossible to ignore.

Last season you heard rumblings about Porter winning post-practice shooting contests featuring some of Denver’s top 3-point marksmen, and when he rises into his jumper that looks as if it could have been constructed inside an NBA laboratory, you begin to buy-in to the popular fables.

During the Nuggets’ third day of training camp, Porter stood five feet inside of the half-court line and promptly swished three straight jumpers that nearly grazed the Olympic Training Center’s ceiling.

He’s gradually building a chemistry with the Nuggets’ All-World center too. Just days before the Nuggets opened training camp, Porter got the chance to play alongside Jokic for the first time after the big man returned from Serbia. Porter quickly got a crash course from the All-Star in Denver’s read and react offense.

Jokic’s message to Porter over the last couple of weeks has been simple: when you’re standing still you’re wrong.

Keeping in constant motion is a prerequisite to playing with the best passing big man in the game and Porter, who packs a seven-foot wingspan, has the tools to develop into an expert cutter. His long frame can be used to corral every and any pass from Jokic around the hoop.

“He’s a really big threat. He’s a really good shooter. He can post-up guys. He can go by guys. He’s a really talented player,” Jokic said. “We’ve never had a player like that, just size-wise and how talented he is.”

Porter has gained the respect of his coaches for how he’s carried himself throughout the summer and training camp. His teammates have developed an admiration for his game too.

In front of both of his parents who are scheduled to be in Portland tonight for their son’s debut at Veterans Memorial Coliseum which is just a short three-hour drive from Seattle’s Nathan Hale where Porter played his senior year of high school, he’s now ready to put the rest of the league on notice.

“I’m meant to be a basketball player,” Porter said. “So I know eventually my time will come.”