Michael Porter Jr. Excited to Take the Reins as a Go-To Scorer for the Nets

Since arriving in the NBA, Michael Porter Jr. has been an alpha scorer trapped in a third option's body.

Offense is the most lethal part of the 6-foot-10 forward's game, but when playing on a team alongside Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray, touches are sometimes hard to come by. But Porter is no longer a Denver Nugget. He's now a Brooklyn Net, and is expected to receive a larger workload than ever before.

The thought of evolving as a primary option intrigues and excites Porter, as he displayed while on former college football star Johnny Manziel's "Glory Daze" podcast.

"When you have a championship-level team, there's gonna be a lot of good players on that team, and there's going to be some sacrificing going on. So when Aaron Gordon came over from Orlando to Denver, he was a number one option in Orlando, and he was probably the number four option in Denver," Porter said. "And so I think we just had so many players that we all had to find that niche and that role to make our team as good as possible."

Porter's role was to be a complementary scorer and secondary playmaker. He did thrive next to Jokic, Murray and Gordon, focusing on spot-up shooting, cutting and scoring in transition.

That's now expected to change, with Porter serving as the beneficiary.

"There's not a Nikola Jokic on our team that's going to have the ball every time down the floor, making the decisions. So I'm going to have the ball in my hands a little bit more, have to make more plays, have to take tougher shots," Porter continued. "It was a blessing to play with Nikola, a blessing to play with Jamal, AG and all those guys. But it's going to be fun exploring my game a little bit as one of the go-to guys."

Reunited with former Denver assistant coach and now Brooklyn head coach Jordi Fernandez, Porter will be—at best—the team's top scoring option and—at worst—the second top scoring option. Much depends on Cam Thomas' ongoing contract dilemma, but regardless of what happens on that front, Porter will be an offensive staple.

He experienced the most-efficient years of his career under Fernandez, and will have the chance to return to his early 2020s form when he was at his best.

It may not translate to wins, but expect Porter to be one of the more exciting scorers in the league in 2025-26.