Porter Jr. fuels his scoring surge with trade motivation, aiming to rewrite his narrative against his former Denver Nuggets team.
The Brooklyn Nets' possible first-time All-Star forward Michael Porter Jr. is set to enter what should be the most emotionally charged contest of his 2025-26 season.
Brooklyn will take on the Denver Nuggets on Sunday evening at home, giving Porter Jr. the chance to put on a offensive clinic against the franchise that decided to ship him to the Nets in exchange for Cam Johnson this past offseason.
Heading into the meaningful game, the excellent scoring wing spoke with The New York Post's Brian Lewis on the greater reaction from the NBA world following the trade and the potential to re-write his story as a Net.
"I definitely use everything I can as motivation," Porter Jr. shared with Lewis on Sunday afternoon.
"It was just so much noise about me as a player," Porter Jr. shared. "I knew if it was healthy coming here I'd be able to change the narrative around me."
Through his first 26 appearances for the Nets in his debut season with the team, changing the narrative has certainly been checked off of on his to-do list for 2025-26.
Porter Jr. has taken a stunning leap both as a scorer and overall offensive engine, averaging 25.8 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.3 assists on a marvelous 59.8% effective field goal percentage, proving to the Nuggets that he had another step to take in his development.
Nets head coach Jordi Fernandez also chimed in on why Brooklyn's matchup with an injury-riddled Denver squad means so much to not only the team's star scoring threat, but to the entire roster and coaching staff.
"If I'm in his shoes, I'll be very excited to play this game," Fernandez told Lewis.
"I have no doubt in my mind he's going to go out and perform on both ends. So it's an exciting day for for all of us, especially for him."
Plenty of expectations have been thrust upon Porter Jr.'s shoulders entering the bout, but Fernandez and the rest of the team truly believe that he's built to author an incredible 'revenge' game against the team that decided to sell him for a perceived upgrade.
Throughout his 345-game Nuggets tenure spanning from 2019-2025, the integral member of Denver's title-winning 2023 iteration averaged 16.2 points and 6.4 rebounds with stellar 50.0/40.6/79.5 shooting splits.
Now, he'll be granted a solid chance to lift his new team over a Denver rotation missing 3-time MVP Nikola Jokić, among others.