Michael Porter Jr. is not an NBA All-Star.
Seven Eastern Conference reserves were announced Sunday, and the Nets forward’s name was not among them, a result that’s difficult to square with the season he’s having and the way opponents have been forced to guard him for the past three months.
For Porter, the omission changes nothing about what this year has become. For Brooklyn, it changes nothing about what this rebuild has already produced.
Through 38 games, Porter has authored the kind of season coaches typically reward when ballots land on their desks. He entered the day 14th among qualified players in scoring at a career-high 25.6 points per game, fifth in the East, while handing out a career-best 3.2 assists.
He ranks seventh in the NBA with 145 made 3-pointers, the most by any player through his first 38 games as a Net, and second in the league with 3.8 made 3s per game, trailing only Stephen Curry. He’s shooting 41.1% from the top-left arc and 46.1% from the top right.
More telling is the difficulty. Porter leads the NBA with 77 made 3s against tight defense, defined as a defender within four feet. The next closest player, James Harden, has 51. No one else has more than 40.
Porter has scored 30 or more points 13 times, tied for 11th most in the NBA, made at least five 3s in 14 games, tied for second most in the league and already the third-most in a single season in franchise history. As of Jan. 30, he has made six or more threes in back-to-back games for the third time in his career, becoming just the 10th Net to do so.
Only one Nets player has ever made more 3s in a season than Porter is currently on pace for, D’Angelo Russell with 234 in 2018-19.
But the stat that may be hardest to ignore is simpler.
The Nets have an offensive rating of 115.5 with Porter on the floor. That number drops to 103.0 when he sits. Per Cleaning The Glass, Brooklyn outscores opponents by 13.2 points per 100 possessions with Porter on the court, the sixth-highest differential in the NBA among players with at least 600 minutes. The Nets score 10.8 more points per 100 possessions overall and shoot 5.6 percent better from three when he plays, both top-10 marks league-wide.
As Nets head coach Jordi Fernández put it recently, “Obviously, gravity is the buzzword for him because he does attract so much attention. What he gives us is a stabilizer on the offensive end. Somebody to play through, someone to calm everybody down when the other team is going on a run. He is one of the best, if not the best, off-ball players in this league. The way he’s able to read how he’s being guarded, seal switches, slip to the rim, slip out and curl off of Nic [Claxton] from the top of the key. The degree of difficulty of shotmaking is elite. He gives us somebody to play through, and he’s played on a winning team for a long time, so he knows what it looks like.”
Porter is the only qualified player in the Eastern Conference and one of four in the NBA averaging at least 25.0 points and 7.0 rebounds this season. He ranks second in points per game off dribble handoffs (4.2) and third off screens (3.6), a reflection of how much Brooklyn’s offense flows through his movement without the ball.
He didn’t arrive in Brooklyn with the résumé of a traditional rebuilding centerpiece. He arrived as a former five-star recruit who once projected as a No. 1 overall pick, a player whose career was nearly derailed by three back surgeries, degenerative disc disease and even foot drop that required a brace. He slid to 14th in the 2018 draft because teams feared he might never play again.
With the Denver Nuggets, he became a high-level starter and champion alongside Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray, but often as a third or fourth option in a loaded offense. Last summer’s trade to Brooklyn, largely viewed through the lens of salary cap mechanics, gave him something he had never truly had before.
An offense built around him.
“He looks strong, he’s confident,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said recently. “It’s great to see, given the issues that he had early in his career. You know, multiple back surgeries, just thrilled to see him out there feeling free and confident and healthy. And he’s always been an unquestionably talented, gifted player, and that’s why he was so highly ranked, you know, coming out of school, but obviously the injuries lowered where he ended up in the draft. But he’s a hell of a player.”
The timing still matters. The trade deadline arrives Feb. 5 at 3 p.m. ET, just four days after the All-Star reserves were announced. Around the league, Porter’s name has circulated in speculation as a potential target for contenders.
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst pushed back on that idea during a recent broadcast.
“I know everybody thinks that Porter’s available, that would be news to me,” Windhorst said. “I have not heard that he is available. If he is available, I’ll wait for Shams [Charania] to tell me because I haven’t heard that.”
The league may not have voted him an All-Star, but teams around the league clearly view him like one.
Because you don’t accidentally develop this type of player during a rebuild. Recognition or not, Porter has become the stabilizer of Brooklyn’s offense, the player defenses must bend around and the clearest evidence yet that this timeline may be ahead of schedule.
Michael Porter Jr. is not an NBA All-Star.
But the Nets’ rebuild looks very different because of him.