Porter Jr. revealed how he watched his former team.
Michael Porter Jr. was part of the Denver Nuggets for six years.
He won a title with Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray in 2023 and was there for every deep playoff run after that, so when Denver traded him to the Brooklyn Nets last July for Cam Johnson and a 2032 first-round pick, it stung.
The whole thing was a money move.
Porter Jr. had to sit and watch this postseason as his former team got knocked out by the Minnesota Timberwolves in six games during the first round.
Porter Jr. Could Not Fully Root for Denver
Porter Jr. talked about it on the One Night with Steiny podcast this week, and he didn't hold back.
"I kind of feel like a hater a little bit," Porter Jr. said. "I'm watching the series and I'm like, 'Those are my guys on the team, I want them to do well,' but I couldn't fully cheer for them because they traded me."
He said he was texting with Christian Braun during the series and felt bad watching Aaron Gordon miss time with a calf injury, so the love for his old teammates is still there.
But being traded is being traded, and Porter Jr.'s first year in Brooklyn made the whole thing sting even more.
He put up 24.2 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 3.0 assists while shooting 46.3 percent from the field across 52 games for a Nets team that went 20-62.
A hamstring injury shut him down before the season ended, but what he did on the court before that was tough for Denver to brush off.
Revisiting The Trade That Changed Both Rosters
Denver moved Porter Jr. mostly because of money.
He was set to earn $40.8 million in 2026-27, and the front office wanted out from under that number.
Johnson was supposed to step into the wing spot with his shooting and defense, but it never clicked the way Denver needed.
Johnson hit 43 percent of his threes in 54 regular-season games and averaged 12.2 points, which is fine on paper, but that production looks small next to what Porter Jr. gave Denver in the same role for years.
A knee injury in December cost Johnson over a month, and he never found his rhythm after coming back.
The Nuggets still finished 54-28 and locked Jokic into a long-term extension heading into next season, but the first-round loss to Minnesota exposed how much thinner the roster got without Porter Jr.'s scoring.
Why Denver Might Have Missed Him Most in the Playoffs
Porter Jr. took it even further on a stream with N3ON, saying flat out that the Nuggets would have beaten the Timberwolves with him still on the roster.
"Shouldn't have traded me, man," he said.
Bold or not, Denver failed to crack 100 points three times in the series against Minnesota, and talk about moving Johnson has already surfaced less than a year after the trade went through.
Porter Jr. is on one of the worst teams in basketball right now, but watching Denver go home early only made him more convinced that the Nuggets got the short end of this deal.