As Michael Porter Jr. wraps up his seventh season with the Denver Nuggets, it appears he has many years ahead of him in the Mile High City.
Determined to stay out of the second apron in the salary cap, the Nuggets have constructed their roster around expensive starters who are surrounded by players on rookie contracts and veteran minimums. Porter, Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon are the four-highest paid players on the roster and all earned $22.8 million or more this season. There are just two other players—Zeke Nnaji and Dario Saric—who are making more than Russell Westbrook's $3.3 million veteran minimum on the Nuggets this year.
To alleviate that salary-cap crunch, the Nuggets could opt to trade one of those four expensive pieces, and Porter's $35.9 million salary paired with his talent seems very movable. But according to Jake Fischer of The Stein Line, trading Porter wouldn't fly among the Nuggets owners in the Kroenke family.
"The Kroenkes have a fondness for Porter that stems from deep ties to their shared alma mater: Missouri," Fischer wrote. "Sources with knowledge of Denver's thinking have maintained for some time that they struggled to envision ownership ever approving a deal that would send Porter away from the franchise."
Denver selected Porter with the No. 14 pick of the 2018 NBA draft after he spent one year playing at Missouri. But his collegiate career only lasted three games due to back surgery. He went on to miss his entire first season in the NBA due to those back issues before debuting for the Nuggets in 2019.
Stan Kroenke, the owner of the Nuggets and a handful of other professional teams, grew up in Missouri and owns undergraduate and graduate degrees from the state's university. His son, Josh—the Nuggets' president—played 122 games for Missouri from 1999 to 2004 and contributed to the Tigers' Elite Eight run in '02.
Although the Tigers' black and gold colors run through the Kroenke family's bloodstream, not approving a potential Porter trade because he played three games for Missouri in college does seem a bit odd.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Report: Nuggets Owners Unlikely to Approve Michael Porter Jr. Trade for Odd Reason.
