In an interview with podcaster Emily Austin last week, Michael Porter Jr. spoke about how he’s enjoying his time with the Nets … which he’s said before. He also spoke about his relationship with Andrew Tate, accused sex trafficker and self-described misogynist, which he’s also done before … unfortunately.
Here’s all 73 (not necessarily) fun minutes:
MPJ, who’s having the best season of his career — although he was out Monday night, has been criticized before by pundits as well as the league for his comments about women. The Nets — specifically Sean Marks — have said they’ve had discussions with Porter about his remarks this summer on both his own podcast as well as others. In particular, team officials (plural) discussed his remarks about how he would play audio of Tate’s most misogynist comments to dates to see how they’d react.
“Those conversations that myself and a group have had with Michael will remain internal,” Marks said on Media Day. “I think this is, as Jordi [Fernández] alluded to, a new environment for him, a new market, new expectations, new roles, both on the court and in the locker room for him. So, I think he’s finding his way.”
At the time, Marks said that he didn’t anticipate speaking with Porter again on the subject.
In the discussion with Austin, MPJ recalled those comments regarding Tate but seemed to go a bit further, indicating a personal connection with the former kickboxer, referring to Tate as “my dawg.”
“They put my dawg in jail with no proof he did any of that,” referring to charges against Tate, particularly in Romania. “They tried to say he trafficked them, but we don’t know. We know that they will put allegations on the people that are speaking too much facts… But his underlying message, like now, when I watch any of his stuff, he just likes to speak pretty true. Now he has has a platform; he’s not doing all that wild stuff.”
MPJ also suggested to Austin that women make unfounded rate allegations “all the time.” “You should get mad at females for doing that, he said. ”Women do that all the time and ruin men’s lives.”
Porter also attempted to compare a situation he faced during COVID to Tate’s situation, accusing an unknown “they” of trying to poison his reputation. Like Kyrie Irving, Porter declined the COVID vaccine. Before that he had suggested that the epidemic might be used to “control the masses.”
“When I didn’t get the vaccine, all of a sudden they started talking crazy about me,” he told Austin. “They tried to make me sound I’m slow or stupid because I didn’t get the vaccine. Now you fast forward a couple years later, now everybody wishes they didn’t get the vaccine,” he said echoing an unproven conspiracy theory.
He continued, claiming inaccurately that the vaccine was the product of only six month research.
“All this research coming out about why it was harmful for you all, a lot of scientists have come out and said there’s no way clinically that they could be out a safe vaccine within six months. The vaccine was not safe to take, and it caused a lot of harm. I didn’t want to put it in my body for my own reasons, but when I didn’t, they started putting all this crazy labels on me that just weren’t true. So I have experienced it personally that they can literally create any narrative they want about someone.”
COVID vaccinations was one of two areas where MPJ seemed to echo Irving. In response to an Austin question on whether the earth is flat, Porter said he wasn’t sure of the earth’s shape.
“I’ve just seen so many theories on like the structure of earth,” said Porter. “And I don’t know where I land on that.” When Austin follows up and asks if the earth might not be round, MPG responds, “Might not be. Hate to break it to you.”
As for his comments on the Nets, Porter re-emphasized his happiness with the Nets organization and his place in it. MPJ is under contract with the Nets for $38.8 million this season and $40.3 million next. As he noted, though, there’s a big difference between his time in Brooklyn and his first five years in the league with Denver, contending every year and winning the NBA championship three years ago, and this season with Brooklyn, which is rebuilding. He also reiterated his desire to stay with the Nets.
“I’m enjoying my time here. It’s obviously different than Denver, but um, you know, I’m 27 now. And to have this time of my life to embrace this different opportunity. I’m I’m all about it. So, I’m excited um for not only the remainder of this year, but going forward hopefully with Brooklyn,” he said.
“It’s the first time in my life that I’ve ever like consistently lost. And so the goal right now is to not get like apathetic to, you know, to to losing. I want to continue to feel that that that hurt and not just kind of become numb to it cuz that’s not me. I’ve always been a guy that loves to win and loves to um you know lead my team and things like that,”
Porter also expressed his feelings about tanking. The Nets deny they’re tanking and MPJ doesn’t directly accuse the organization of such, but he does admit he doesn’t like the idea.
“They’ve got to do something about this tanking situation. I don’t like how teams are deliberately trying to tank to get a good draft pick. I think throwing full NBA seasons down the drain is not the way to go. It’s not very ethical to the game, and people pay a lot of money to watch the best players in the world compete.
“You want to see teams competing to their fullest ability every single night. When teams are doing some of the stuff they’re doing nowadays, it can be tough. I’ve seen people share different ideas about how that should change, but the thing is, you may tank for a whole season and still not get the draft pick you want. Even if you do get the draft pick you want, that player might not pan out the way you thought he would, and now you’ve set your program back years and years.”
Finally, Porter told Austin that he has mixed feelings about rooting for the team that traded him.
“I’d love it, and hate it, if Denver won. I’d love it because those are my friends. But I’d hate it because that means they got better without me,” Porter Jr. said while smiling. “I’m like a toxic ex. “I would love it for all my individual teammates, but selfishly, that human nature part of me is like, dang, they shipped me off and then they got better and won a championship.”
“I’m going to say my prediction is that if everyone gets healthy on the Nuggets — Peyton Watson broke out this year and Aaron Gordon is a difference maker — once they get healthy for the playoffs, it’s going to be really, really hard to beat them in seven games,” Porter Jr. contended. “I’m going to go with Denver.”