NBA fans have grown accustomed to seeing the Denver Nuggets near the top of the Western Conference standings in recent years, and the 2024-25 campaign is proving to be no different. Denver is 35-19 and third in the West with one game remaining before the All-Star break.
And while three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic receives much of the attention, small forward Michael Porter Jr. has stolen the show in recent games.
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The seventh-year veteran out of Missouri has averaged 35.0 points per game in his last three outings (including a 39-point, 12-rebound double-double on Feb. 5) before missing the last two contests with a hamstring injury. He’s third on the team in scoring this season, and his 19.0 points per game match his career high, set in 2020-21. He’s shooting 52.3% from the field and 41.7% from 3-point range.
Michael Porter Jr. knocks down his FIFTH triple of the game 🔥
— Nuggets Nation (@NuggetsNationCP) February 7, 2025
Perhaps most significantly, he’s averaging a career-high 33.3 minutes per game — a huge feat for someone who missed his entire rookie season and all but nine games of the 2021-22 season due to a back injury.
Porter Jr. generated some trade buzz before last week’s trade deadline, but Denver’s front office saw too much value in the 26-year-old with plenty of years left in his prime. His importance to the Nuggets since being drafted 14th overall by the team in 2018 is not lost on head coach Mike Malone, either.
“It’s been so much fun to watch [Porter Jr.] having these breakout games,” Malone told the Denver Post last week when asked about Porter Jr.’ s recent success. “I said it a few days ago, ‘We don’t win a championship (in the 2022-23 season) without Michael Porter Jr.’ He’s been such an important, integral part of our team and what we are trying to accomplish.”
A week after winning the 2023 NBA Finals, Porter Jr. reflected on the experience in a video with his pastor, Shawn Johnson.
“A week ago, we won an NBA championship. This last week, I’ve been struggling with a lot. I’m kind of sad afterwards, like, ‘Is that all that really was?'” Porter Jr. said. “… Whatever I go through, it’s not gonna shake my faith. Because we’re gonna be somewhere for eternity; I want that place to be Heaven. So whatever I go through, I’m not gonna let that change my faith in God.”
For Porter Jr., it was in his one year of college at Missouri that the allure of the world fell away in comparison to Christ.
“In college, I finally realized, ‘OK, I want to choose Jesus and God,'” he said in a 2022 video with Truth Over Tribe. “I want to be known as that. I’m not gonna be perfect, but that’s what I’m gonna choose.”
Porter Jr. seeks to spend time with his Heavenly Father by reading His Word and by surrounding himself with people he can be vulnerable with and who keep him accountable. He’s even taken time out of his busy schedule to work with International Justice Mission, an organization dedicated to protecting people in poverty from violence and trafficking.
“I think really using the platform God gave you for impact, just to inspire other people and make other people happy, is really the bigger purpose,” he said in a video after traveling to the Philippines with IJM.
He continued later: “A large part of my life has been trying to make it myself and get to the place where I’m at today. But I think being out here, for me, is all about how I can serve others and see how God can impact my heart through serving others.”
In a Sports Spectrum Magazine feature from 2018, Porter Jr. declared that his true purpose is found in Christ.
“[God] cares more about my soul than He does about my success in this world,” he said. “So that’s how I view that right now. I could be the No. 1 recruit, I could be the best player in the NBA, but if I’m not [connected to Him], what’s the point of it all?”
Rooted in his identity as a child of God, Porter Jr. will seek to continue his production for the Nuggets as they eye another deep playoff run. Denver has won seven consecutive games and will go for an eighth on Wednesday night against the Portland Trail Blazers (23-31), a team the Nuggets beat, 146-117, on Monday.
Tip-off is set for 9 p.m. ET and Porter Jr. is listed as questionable with his hamstring injury.
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