Michael Porter Jr. has come a long way from his injury-plagued past. The Denver Nuggets forward has missed only 21 games in the past two seasons after playing only 125 games in his first three years in the NBA.
Not only that, MPJ has also established himself as a solid starter in the league and is coming off a campaign where he averaged 16.7 points and 7.0 rebounds per game. While this is a great sign for him and the Nuggets, Atlanta Hawks All-Star guard Trae Young says that Porter could have even been a bigger star if only he stayed healthy.
"I was at the practice where he hurt his back," said Young on Podcast P. "I was with him a week ago and we still talk about that like the difference in his game. He would have been another Paul George. Like he's so offensively skilled and he's just so smooth with his game and he was a really good defender in high school. But he could have even been a better defender at this level."
Trae was there when MPJ first hurt his back
Young and Porter go a long way back. As high school stars, they trained together in 2015 and 2016, even teaming up for Kansas City's MOKAN Elite AAU club. Together, they won the 2016 Nike Peach Jam championship and even shared co-MVP honors.
But one time, while they were in Austin, Porter tried to dunk on a guy in practice, and he fell flat on his back. MPJ said that he fell so hard he thought he died. That was when he started having nagging back pains, but they did not add up until he got hurt during his first-ever game at Missouri. From there, he had the first of three back surgeries that forced him to miss more than 100 games in his first five NBA seasons.
"If his back wasn't so stiff and he having screws and having things messed up in his back like it's just unfortunate. He would've been a really, really high-level player. Thankfully, he still made a good career so far," added Young.
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Porter didn't think he would win an NBA championship
The Denver Nuggets ended up taking a chance on the red-flagged Porter with the 14th pick of the 2018 NBA Draft. Although he missed a lot of games early on, he's gotten healthier in recent years. In 2023, he helped the Nuggets win a title, something which he says he didn't expect after undergoing three back surgeries.
“After the third one, I would have hoped, but I didn’t know for sure," said Michael. "I was gonna keep on going, keep attacking my rehab, hoping I made it back to where I was, but I didn’t know. So to actually do it, you know, what we did one year after I had my third back surgery, it’s really amazing.”
What's even more amazing is that MPJ missed only one regular-season game during the 2023-24 campaign. Although the Nuggets failed to defend their NBA championship, Michael's playing virtually the entire regular campaign is a step in the right direction for both himself and the team as they look ahead to the future.
Related: "We were on ESPN every day, that's all they were pushing" – Trae Young on being compared to Steph Curry since his collegiate days
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