Texas Chuck wrote:Felt out there on an island including Capela on my all-NBA, so refreshing to see Doc put Porter on his squad. Not a guy I had on my radar nor have I heard any of the usual media suspects discussing him as a candidate. I always appreciate guys willing to go with who they think deserves a nod without regard to consensus opinion.
Not as high on Murray as Doc though, even pre-injury.
Cool. Glad we can embolden one another.
Here's a fun stat. Top players by +/- in the second half of the season, for the Nuggets (who we're talking about) and the Jazz (who dominate)
1. Rudy Gobert +373
2. Michael Porter Jr. +279
3. Joe Ingles +250
4. Mike Conley +243
5. Royce O'Neale +232
.
8. Georges Nian +208
.
13. Bojan Bogdanovic +193
.
15. Nikola Jokic +184
.
40. Will Barton +136
.
51. Jordan Clarkson +115
Apologies if the Jazz infusion just clouds the point.
We know that Porter is scoring really, really effectively and that's got to be valuable, but there's a major tendency to credit his success to Jokic due to the ease of narrative ("elevated a new co-star"). As big as a believer I am in Jokic though, and as much as I think Jokic being Jokic helped make all this possible, the numbers I'm seeing in the +/- from Porter really suggest that now he's learned to play in the Jokic-inspired system, he can be a dominant scorer with or without Jokic on the court.
Seriously, I now think with Porter we're seeing the signs of a future MVP candidate in his own right, and quite possibly a situation where he gets seen as the "true superstar" of the Nuggets over either Jokic or Murray.
Am I saying this WILL happen? No, not big on prognostication. I see possibilities, nothing more. And I also see the possibility that the Jokic-Porter-Murray triangle never really allows all 3 to be at their best at the same time and this leads to strife. Porter's reputation as a person is on the mend, but I still won't be surprised if the Nuggets end up feeling pressure from Porter to either give him all the things he could want or trade him.
But yeah, I was skeptical of Porter earlier this year, but now I can't be. And when I think about the question of "Who has grown the most in the last 12 months as a player?", the answer is Porter more than it is anyone else.
What I'm also trying to show here is that Jokic is indeed standing out from all his other teammates in a way you might be tempted to see as analogous but lower than Gobert and the Jazz. He's not showing middle-of-the-pack type performance which you get with a putative-star that isn't showing obvious impact. He's showing impact...but Porter appears to be standing out that much more.
As someone who will have Jokic as #1 on his hypothetical MVP ballot as RS end, this is eyebrow-raising to me.
