Porter Jr. remains part of Brooklyn rebuild

Michael Porter Jr. is all in for Brooklyn.

Even if he had to wait out this month’s NBA trade deadline to be sure the Nets’ brain trust felt the same way.

“I think that we are on the right path to being a good team,” Porter told former Net Cam Johnson, the player he was traded for last July, on the Old Man and the Three podcast during All-Star weekend.

Porter was the only Brooklyn player with a chance to earn All-Star honors this season, averaging a team-high 25.0 points per contest to go with 7.2 rebounds and 3.2 assists.

The 6-foot-10 forward, who arrived here from Denver after helping the Nuggets win the 2023 NBA Finals during his six-year tenure in the Rocky Mountains, was rumored to be on the market as the deadline approached.

Whether it was Golden State or Detroit or Milwaukee, Porter was a wanted man.

But Nets general manager, second-year coach Jordi Fernández and most especially owner Joe Tsai, who will have to offer Porter a lucrative extension following the termination of the contract he inherited from Denver, all decided he was needed most here.

After sitting out the Nets’ final two games before the league’s annual week-long hiatus due to tendinitis in his right knee, Porter should be ready to go when Brooklyn opens the nominal second half of the campaign in Cleveland on Thursday night.

And he’s happy to do so after sweating out the potential for his second trade in seven months.

Johnson went to the Nuggets for Porter and a 2032 first-round pick, adding to the plethora of draft stock Marks has accumulated while dealing off Kevin Durant, James Harden, Kyrie Irving, Mikal Bridges and any other veteran that fit the bill.

The University of Missouri product has remained steadfast throughout his first season in our borough that the Nets have the pieces in place that helped the Nuggets go from also-rans to champions four years after he was drafted 14th overall.

He reiterated that while getting some rest after not receiving an invite to Los Angeles for the All-Star Game.

“We’re the youngest team in the league,” he noted. “They got a lot of money over there to spend, and they got the most picks. We’re looking at a high draft pick this next season. So I understand the vision of the organization.”

That vision includes June’s historic haul of five first-round picks, including Rising Stars Challenge participant Egor Dёmin, as well as veteran stalwarts Nic Claxton, Day’Ron Sharpe and Terance Mann.

The Nets did waive Cam Thomas, who was subsequently picked up by the Bucks. But Marks made it obvious last summer that he didn’t want to go long term with the high-scoring shooting guard when he was a restricted free agent.

Now, Porter will have to buy into Marks’ vision, which has seen the Nets lose 50 games two years ago, 56 last season and resulted in 38 defeats in the first 53 contests in 2025-26.

“It can be tough because I wanna play winning basketball and compete,” Porter readily admitted. “If I’m putting my body through all this recovery, all this work, I wanna see the W at the end of the day.”

Brooklyn did show signs of turning things around with a 7-4 December, only to go 5-18 in the new year thus far.

The Nets (15-38) will take a crack at upsetting one of the Eastern Conference’s hottest teams Thursday in Cleveland.

The Cavaliers (34-21) reeled off five straight wins and 10 of 11 prior to the break as they chase an NBA title, something that escaped them last year despite finishing with the league’s top record.

The Nets will simply be trying to evaluate talent and figure out whom will be playing alongside Porter next season.

“We are building something, and we’re developing really good young players. It’s not far off from being a really dope thing in Brooklyn,” he said.

Tip-off at Rocket Arena is slated for 7 p.m.

The game will air locally on the YES Network.

*** 

The New York Liberty still aren’t sure when their 2026 season will begin.

With the WNBA and the Players’ Association continuing to haggle over a collective bargaining agreement,  New York is still waiting to secure Big Three free agents Jonquel Jones, Sabrina Ionescu and Breanna Stewart, who will be playing overseas in Turkey in April.

The league issued a statement through a spokesperson this week, indicating that the players’ latest counter proposal wasn’t close to what they were hoping to receive in order for the campaign to begin on May 8.

“The Players Association’s latest proposal remains unrealistic and would cause hundreds of millions of dollars of losses for our teams,” the statement read. 

“We still need to complete two Drafts [a two-team expansion draft and college draft] and free agency before the start of training camp (in April) and are running out of time. We believe the WNBA’s proposal would result in a huge win for current players and generations to come.”

The Liberty are scheduled to host Connecticut in the May 8 opener at Barclays Center, with training camp expected to kick off a few weeks earlier under new coach Chris DeMarco.