![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/TDP-L-mpjfan2022-01.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
(Courtesy Ashley Salvador)<\/p>\n
Former Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr. (right) poses with fan Janice Jackson at Jackson’s home in Jan. 2022. Jackson passed away in Feb. 2022 but was overjoyed with Porter’s surprise visit. Porter and Jackson’s family watched the Nuggets beat the Nets in Brooklyn that night. Ironically, Porter would be traded to Brooklyn three years later.<\/p>\n
Michael Porter Jr. might be your Lex Luthor, but he\u2019s Ashley Salvador\u2019s Superman.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI knew that it was probably coming because (the Nuggets) needed to kind of shake things up<\/a>,\u201d Ashley told me last Friday. \u201cI was still sad when they announced it.\u201d<\/p>\n MPJ officially became a member of the Nets last week.<\/a> While you cheered, Ashley wept. The Nuggets got better. Her day got worse.<\/p>\n \u201cMichael does no wrong in my eyes,\u201d Salvador, a lifelong Denverite, continued. \u201cWhen he got traded, I cried.\u201d<\/p>\n You said good riddance to a bad contract.<\/a> Ashley said farewell to a guy who showed up unannounced at her sick aunt\u2019s house three years ago. Who sat down to watch a Nuggets game with Janice Jackson. His angel.<\/p>\n A guy who held that angel\u2019s hand. Who humored her. Comforted her. Prayed with her. A guy who made a dying woman feel about 8 feet fall.<\/p>\n \u2018How do you like playing with The Joker?\u2019<\/p>\n Legends are complicated. When Porter was dealt from the Nuggets to Brooklyn with a draft pick for Cam Johnson, Ashley felt a little part of her Aunt Janice traded, too. The part that always made her laugh.<\/p>\n \u201cOh my God, she was hilarious to watch the game with,\u201d Salvador continued. \u201cShe got angry. She was happy. We\u2019d start losing, and she\u2019d be like, \u2018I\u2019m changing it.\u2019 And then 2 seconds later, she\u2019s like, \u2018I can\u2019t stop watching this.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cThe highs and the lows, it didn\u2019t matter. She watched it no matter what. She did not miss a game.\u201d<\/p>\n She sure as heck wasn\u2019t going to miss the Nuggets\u2019 visit to the Nets on Jan. 26, 2022,<\/a> a makeup game in the Big Apple. Cirrhosis had sapped her strength, her appetite and her focus. It couldn\u2019t kill her love for the Nuggets. Are you kidding? Jamal Murray shot arrow after arrow straight into her heart. She called Gary Harris \u201cmy baby.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cMy aunt loved the Nuggets more than the Broncos,\u201d Ashley continued, \u201cand that\u2019s saying something.\u201d<\/p>\n Even though it was colder than a witch\u2019s kiss, the family scheduled a Nuggets-Nets watch party at Janice\u2019s Barnum West home. She was fighting but fading, making every moment, every last game, a precious one.<\/p>\n Ashley picked up her brother Tim for the party. After setting his wheelchair inside her trunk compartment, she shut the door. A handle caught her windshield glass of her Mazda CX-5, shattering in the dead of winter. Not the best omen for the evening.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all right; it\u2019s a windshield, we\u2019ll replace it,\u201d she told everybody. \u201cLet\u2019s go see Aunt Janice.\u201d<\/p>\n About eight or nine loved ones were at the house, just before tip-off, when Ashley\u2019s cousin Nicole, made an announcement.<\/p>\n \u201cI need everybody to put their phones in this basket,\u201d Nicole said.<\/p>\n Eyebrows went up.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a surprise,\u201d Nicole pressed. \u201cPut your phones in the basket.\u201d<\/p>\n Ashley did. She remembers a big, shiny car pulling up. Then she remembers this giant figure walking into the house, then learning over to remove a pair of giant shoes.<\/p>\n She remembers Aunt Janice rising up from her chair, how the whites returned to tired eyes. She remembers a double-take that would\u2019ve put Lou Costello to shame.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cMICHAEL?\u201d Janice cried.<\/p>\n MPJ. In the flesh.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t understand how tall these guys are,\u201d Ashley laughed, \u201cuntil you see them.\u201d<\/p>\n Turns out Janice\u2019s granddaughter went to DU and knew Michael\u2019s younger brother Coban. One of Jackson\u2019s wishes was to meet a Nuggets player before she said goodbye. As her health turned for the worse, calls were made.<\/p>\n Which is the short version of how MPJ, who at that time was out for the season and rehabbing his back, became Ashley\u2019s favorite Nugget.<\/p>\n \u201cThat,\u201d Salvador recalled, \u201cmade her really happy.\u201d<\/p>\n Porter walked in. He hugged Jackson. Shook her hand. Sat next to her all through the first quarter.<\/p>\n Janice? Janice was a kid again. Asking all the questions she had to know in the time she had left.<\/p>\n \u201cHow do you like playing with the Joker?\u201d she wondered.<\/p>\n \u201cI love playing with him. It\u2019s unreal,\u201d MPJ said. \u201cHis basketball IQ is on another level. But sometimes you kind of enjoy when he\u2019s not on the floor because you get to do a little bit more of what you want.\u201d<\/p>\n Porter laughed. Said with love.<\/p>\n MPJ signed a jersey. He posed for pictures. After about an hour, he had another appointment and excused himself. Yet as he was about to go, he had a question for Janice.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you mind if I say a prayer for you?\u201d Porter asked.<\/p>\n She most certainly did not.<\/p>\n \u201cYou go get better,\u201d Janice told him, \u201cso that way you can go win us a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to try my hardest,\u201d MPJ replied.<\/p>\n Ashley watched him drive off. Janice grinned. The Nuggets won, 124-118.<\/p>\n A month later, she was gone.<\/p>\n \u2018I just didn\u2019t know that he was such a good person.\u2019<\/p>\n Legacies are complicated. But MPJ was true to his word. The dragon that had found its feet for a blink in early 2021, right after Aaron Gordon came aboard, finally took flight in \u201922-23.<\/p>\n A year after Aunt Janice passed, her Nuggets were invincible and inevitable. Denver posted a 16-4 mark through the spring of \u201923, sweeping the Lakers, then stomping the Heat in The Finals to finally reach the NBA\u2019s summit.<\/p>\n They don\u2019t get there without Porter. Warts and all. The best relationships end with a ring.<\/p>\n \u201cWe took a chance,\u201d Ashley said. \u201cAnd I think that it was a chance well-take. Because I feel like he really did do great things.\u201d<\/p>\n The Nuggets gambled on a lottery talent whose body was a lottery ticket. As a player, MPJ danced in Denver\u2019s gray area, polarizing in ways that weren\u2019t always his fault. If Playoff Jamal was an oven, Playoff Michael was a faucet, forever running hot or cold.<\/p>\n Yet unlike Murray, his availability \u2014 MPJ appeared in 81 of 82 regular-season games in \u201923-24, then 77 of 82 in \u201924-25 \u2014 improved. So did his defense.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cAnd his stats went up every year,\u201d Salvador stressed. \u201cEverybody\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, Porter this and Porter that.\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018Dude, every year he has improved his game.’\u201d<\/p>\n Janice is still there, of course. Still watching. Ashley has an urn of her ashes at home on a shelf. A picture of Jackson with Denver icon Chauncey Billups rests by the TV. Whenever the Nuggets game comes on, Salvador picks up her aunt\u2019s remains and sets them next to the picture, next to Chauncey, closer to the action.<\/p>\n \u201cHe always talks about how spiritual he is,\u201d Ashley said. \u201cAnd (with) some people \u2026 you can brush that off. To actually witness it, you know how genuine it is. He\u2019s not B.S.-ing. That\u2019s who he is.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we drafted him, I was through the roof. I just knew that he was going to do good things for us. I just didn\u2019t know that he was such a good person.\u201d<\/p>\n Yes, his body sometimes failed him. True, when the shots didn\u2019t fall, MPJ could disappear. But if a kid needed a kind word or an aunt needed a hug, the man rarely missed. You don\u2019t always need a cape to become somebody\u2019s hero.<\/p>\n