Just by looking at him, the casual person wouldn\u2019t be able to tell that Nikola Jokic is arguably the best player in the NBA. The three-time MVP\u2019s former teammate, Michael Porter Jr., used to be among those people. Even in his first training camp with the Denver Nuggets, MPJ didn\u2019t see the hype with the Serbian star.<\/p>\n
Unlike other prospects his age, Michael Porter Jr.<\/a> didn\u2019t watch much NBA<\/a>. Although that was his end goal, the basketball content he consumed was of a skill level closer to his. \u201cGoing into the Nuggets, I didn\u2019t really follow the NBA much before I got to the NBA,\u201d Porter Jr. said<\/a> on the Glory Daze\u00a0podcast. \u201cI always focused on my age group. When I was in high school, I was watching high school dudes. When I was in college, I was watching my friends who were in college.\u201d<\/p>\n Porter Jr. didn\u2019t want to lose sight of his competition around him. His collegiate year at Missouri was different though, since he missed most of his freshman season with an injury. As a result, he supported his friends such as Trae Young and Deandre Ayton, whenever he watched college basketball.<\/p>\n After the Nuggets selected Porter Jr. in the 2018 NBA Draft, he prepared for training camp. MPJ was rehabbing from a back injury in his rookie season. He didn\u2019t partake in training camp activities, but was present with the rest of the team. Of course, he knew of Nikola Jokic<\/a>, but nothing about the 6-foot-11 big man necessarily stood out.<\/p>\n \u201cHe wasn\u2019t the superstar he is now when I first got drafted,\u201d Porter Jr. said. \u201cI really didn\u2019t see it at first. Everybody keeps telling me he\u2019s that cold. But in training camp, him and Mason Plumlee, our backup center, are going head-to-head.\u201d<\/p>\n Porter Jr. was under the assumption that his teammates had begun to overhype Jokic\u2019s skill. Nevertheless, they implored Porter Jr. that Jokic is the real deal.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were like, \u2018No Mike, wait till the real games come. You\u2019re going to see that this dude\u2019s a problem,’\u201d Porter Jr. said. That is exactly what happened. \u201cI quickly found out that he is him. He is the best player in the world,\u201d Porter Jr. proclaimed.<\/p>\n Porter Jr. won\u2019t make the same mistake to ever question the Joker\u2019s greatness<\/a> ever again. MPJ had the privilege of playing alongside Jokic for the past six seasons. Unfortunately, the next time the two share the court, it will be as opponents following Porter Jr.\u2019s trade<\/a> to the Brooklyn Nets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just by looking at him, the casual person wouldn\u2019t be able to tell that Nikola Jokic is arguably…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-88684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}