Michael Porter Jr. could be on his way out of the Brooklyn Nets, a team that has given him the freedom to be a primary on-ball creator.
According to NBA insider Erik Slater and Brian Lewis of ClutchPoints, Porter Jr. and the Nets are not on the same page regarding a potential contract extension, and Brooklyn could just let go of the former NBA champion once his contract expires or just trade him away for cheaper contracts to get some value out of him.
“I think his future with the Nets, or his Nets tenure, might be coming to a close shortly. That’s kind of my read on it,” Slater said.
“I just think that they’re apart in contract negotiations, and I don’t see them holding him past the trade deadline without an extension. I’ve seen some Nets fans posit that they could hold him past the trade deadline and let him go into unrestricted free agency if they want to keep him. They’re still going to have some of the most cap space in the league.”
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Michael Porter Jr. Could Be Traded From The Brooklyn Nets Soon
Slater added that Porter Jr. could be traded before the upcoming season’s trade deadline, especially if his value remains solid at the start of the 2026-2027 NBA season.
“But I think that that’s a little too risky for my stomach. So, I think they’ll probably move him at the trade deadline is what it’s looking like to me. And that’s kind of what I have been hearing, dating back for a little bit now, in terms of how they were viewing him,” Slater said.
Porter Jr. averaged 24.2 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 3.0 assists per game in 52 games during last season as the Nets’ go-to scorer.
It was Porter Jr.’s first season outside the Denver Nuggets, the team that drafted him and where he won his lone NBA championship so far, in 2023.
Porter Jr. is entering the final year of his five-year, $179 million contract next season, earning a base salary of $40.8 million, with no extension agreed upon yet.
Next season, Porter Jr. will be teammates with Julius Randle, another ball-dominant forward, and Mikel Brown Jr., the No. 6 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, who is expected to be the team’s foundational piece for the future.
Retirement Already In The Mind Of Michael Porter Jr.
Michael Porter Jr. could also be retiring soon, perhaps in the next five years.
This was according to him in his appearance on the Girls, Disrupted podcast in August.
“When we start having kids, I don’t want other people really raising my kids,” Porter said. “But the thing is, I don’t want to play basketball for 10 more years. I want to be done in the next five, six years. So during that time, I’m fine being home a lot. I’m a chill dude. I want to raise my kids.”
That could mean Porter Jr., who is just 28 years old, would only have about two contracts left in his NBA career.
Nevertheless, Porter Jr. has a solid resume as an NBA player, winning an NBA championship as a starter with the Nuggets and being a 20-point scorer for most of his tenure.
Michael Porter Jr. Gets Bad News About His Future With Brooklyn Nets