July 18, 2026, 6:07 p.m. ET

Brooklyn Nets forward Michael Porter Jr. had an eventful first season with the Nets as he went from playing next to Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray with the Denver Nuggets to being the first option. Brooklyn put Porter in a position to show what he was made of as the primary scorer and leader and he explained what the experience was like while on ESPN’s SportsCenter.

“It felt like last year was like a new rookie season. It felt that drastic of a change,” Porter said while talking to ESPN’s Kevin Negandhi as part of SportsCenter being at FanFest NYC. Porter appears to be one of the players that the Nets will be relying on next season, but his job should be made easier after Brooklyn acquired forward Julius Randle from the Minnesota Timberwolves via trade earlier this offseason.

“Being in Denver, being one of the younger guys, a part of established culture and everything, and then winning a championship, to come to Brooklyn and be the you know the leader on the team, one of the oldest guys on the team,” Porter continued. “We had five rookies, the youngest team in the NBA. It was a completely different role that I had, but it was something that I cherished. I think that we’re building something special over there.”

Porter, 28, is coming off a 2025-26 season in which he finished with averages of 24.2 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 3.0 assists per game while shooting 46.3% from the field and 36.3% from behind the three-point line. Porter played so well during the first half of the season that it came down to the wire whether he was going to make the Eastern Conference All-Star team before the coaches chose other players for the reserves.

Of the players that finished the season with the Nets, Porter was the leading scorer by over 12 points per contest with center Nic Claxton, who’s now with the Chicago Bulls, averaging 12.3 points per game. Now that Randle is on the roster, Porter will have another veteran player that can help him with leading the team both on and off the court and the former Missouri Tiger seems to believe that Brooklyn can make something happen sooner than later.

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