Brooklyn Nets fans must feel like they’ve lived many lives in one. After relocating from New Jersey, the franchise has made every effort to win a championship, all for each iteration of their contending squad to fail, at times miserably. The latest Big Three that they put together —Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving –left such an acrid taste on the front office’s mouth that they decided to take a new course altogether, and have now entered a rebuild.
Nets Arrival Michael Porter Jr. Doesn’t Know ‘How Much Longer’ He Wants To Play
This season, the Nets top three players are Michael Porter Jr., Cam Thomas and Nic Claxton. With Porter and Thomas surrounded by defenders like Terance Mann and Haywood Highsmith, and a handful of young players as x-factors, they could win 30-35 games in the East. The injury complications that multiple Eastern Conference favorites face heightens their chance of having a respectable season under proud head coach Jordi Fernandez.
Yet, no matter how well they perform in the immediate future, they have to think long-term. That being said, despite their belief that they may have a future league-leading scorer in Porter, the 27-year-old isn’t sure how much longer he wants to play.
“Because of the injuries and stuff, I don’t know how much longer I really want to play,” he tells Respectfully: The Just Laboy Show host Justin Laboy.
“Like, I want to play as long as I can, but people don’t understand the things I’ve got to go through on a daily basis—just to get out on the court and play with the best athletes in the world… after three back surgeries…”
“You know, people say the same thing about Ben Simmons: “Oh, he doesn’t want to hoop. He’s mental.” No, he had one or two of the injuries I had. I’ve had three of them. So I know—it’s not that he doesn’t want to hoop, it’s the fact that those injuries are serious injuries.”
“My injuries were very unique because there was nerve damage, right?
“There’s a lot of compensation that goes on because I’m moving different from left leg to right leg. It’s really technical, but there’s a whole lot of compensation. My hips might get thrown off, my feet get to aching because I’m not distributing the weight properly because of the nerve injury.”
The nerves are what send the signal to your muscles to fire. In my situation, my nerve was compressed for a long time. So by the time I finally had some of these surgeries, the nerve had been compressed so long that my muscles stopped working. To this day, my left leg does not work like my right leg. So I’ve got to wear a brace in the game.”
Back-To-Back-To-Back
As Porter disclosed, he has had several back injuries over the course of his career.
The first major issue occurred in 2017, when he was a freshman at Missouri. After just three games, he required a microdiscectomy, causing him to be out for the remainder of the season. Then, conscious of the risks associated with drafting Porter, who required a second back surgery, the Denver Nuggets sat him out for 2018-19. In 2021, he would have another procedure done on his back, this time a lumbar spine surgery.
Keeping that in mind, there are two ways to look at Porter’s injury history. On the one hand, he has exhibited an extreme amount of mental and physical toughness. On the other hand, the wheels will could fall off eventually, and possibly while he’s in a Nets uniform.
New Routine
Porter has gone viral multiple times this summer due to views he’s expressed on various podcasts. However, he hasn’t just picked up a new hobby, telling Laboy that he has a new routine:
“Really, what I started doing though—earlier this summer, I went to Costa Rica, put my phone up, didn’t touch it for four days, and spent time thinking about just the next year. Let’s plan the next year. See if I even want to play basketball this next year.”
“Let’s go deep and see: What do I want to focus on? What am I really thinking, right? I put my phone up, started doing journaling, started doing reading. First time in my life I’ve done that,” he admits. “I came to real clarity. I decided: all I’m going to do is take it a year at a time. So I’m committed to basketball and putting my all into it for the next year. And then after that, I’m gonna reevaluate. I’m gonna take a trip somewhere else, put my phone up for four or five days, and reevaluate for the next year. So that’s kind of how I want to do it moving forward.”
To be fair to Porter, he has every right to choose when and how he leaves the NBA. Though he’s left a mark as one of the best marksmen for a championship team, it’s less about respect for his accomplishments than him as a human. Nevertheless, if he’s going to take his retirement year-by-year, the Nets will have just as much of a right to decide if it’s a partnership they want to continue.
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