Thank you Denver/How I Found Out I Got Traded — Michael Porter Jr.
00:00:00.880 | yo what's going on y'all is curious mike back with another video i know i ain't talked to
00:00:07.680 | y'all for a while but you know something interesting happened i'm out here in capri right now actually
00:00:13.680 | um i'm out here with some friends and some family i was on the way out here
00:00:19.520 | when i got the news that i was traded um i was on a plane ride here and yeah i found out
00:00:30.240 | i'm gonna try to do this video in one take so i might be a little all over the place
00:00:34.160 | but i want to start off expressing my gratitude to the nuggets organization um i remember when i
00:00:42.240 | was first drafted i remember draft night um i remember the whole week leading up to draft i was
00:00:47.120 | in a ton of a ton of pain dealing with some some back stuff that i had dealt with in college and
00:00:52.640 | then all the way leading up to the to the draft and i remember getting a phone call from tim conley
00:00:58.160 | um probably the day before the draft and i had no idea where i was going to land because of the
00:01:04.320 | injury history and um you know tim me and him had the first conversation we had the day before the
00:01:11.280 | draft we never had any any interview um i interviewed with a lot of other teams and nuggets were not one
00:01:17.600 | but i talked to tim the day before and um you know then draft night comes around
00:01:23.040 | and uh i always expected to be the number one pick in the draft prior to my injury history so
00:01:29.280 | the draft night did not go as i expected as i kept kind of dropping dropping dropping until i got selected
00:01:36.000 | by the nuggets with the 14th pick and um and one of these videos i'll go into more depth about that whole
00:01:42.160 | draft story but um the point of this video is to express my gratitude to the nuggets organization
00:01:49.520 | um tim conley josh kronke stan kronke and the whole front office they took a chance on me that day
00:01:55.360 | um they drafted me with the 14th pick and my life was forever changed you know i went out to denver
00:02:01.920 | and uh the journey started as a young as a young kid i think i was 18 years old you know just
00:02:07.760 | not even really experiencing college much because of the injury stuff that had gone on and um now i'm in
00:02:14.000 | the nba um so my first thanks is to you know josh stan um tim conley and the whole front office for
00:02:24.080 | taking a chance on me and changing my life you know and then from there when i got to denver i had to
00:02:30.080 | deal with all the injury stuff that i had had prior to the draft and uh ended up having to get another
00:02:35.920 | surgery my second back surgery before i had played a game in a nuggets uniform
00:02:40.160 | and uh so my second thanks i want to thank to the medical team and you know specifically
00:02:44.880 | the physical therapists and the trainers over there with the nuggets um steve short you know dan my boy
00:02:52.000 | dan my boy jay who helped me a lot through this process and you know everyone else who helped who
00:02:57.600 | helped out you guys were tremendous in getting me back into a place where i was able to play the game i
00:03:03.760 | loved and um i just want to say thank you for that um you know and then from there it's all the it's all
00:03:11.680 | the the little people as some would say that i want to express my gratitude to you know from the equipment
00:03:17.760 | managers to the ball boys to the the chef every day you know i developed a relationship with a lot of
00:03:22.720 | you guys and um i just want to express my gratitude for every single day showing up for me and being there
00:03:29.280 | for me and um you know becoming my friends you know sparky shout out to my guy sparky equipment manager
00:03:35.840 | who was there 40 years who recently retired um gene i appreciate you bro uh yeah everybody it's been
00:03:46.160 | it's been a treat to to grow up and play in denver from there i want to thank my teammates you know i came
00:03:52.880 | in and i had a whole different group of teammates than than the teammates i ended up with but um you
00:03:59.200 | know the two guys that were with me along the whole journey jamal murray and nicole yokich um
00:04:04.880 | i appreciate you guys you know accepting me coming into the team you know you guys already had
00:04:09.920 | your two-man game going on your very potent two-man game and you know when i came there you guys
00:04:16.320 | immediately made me feel comfortable with my game and um you guys put me in a position to succeed
00:04:23.040 | so i want to thank all my teammates throughout the years over there in denver you know it's been great
00:04:28.320 | getting to getting to play with you guys and um eventually win a championship
00:04:33.600 | so i appreciate you guys i appreciate you coach malone thank you man for um
00:04:40.960 | just for helping me grow up you know and teaching me how to play play the game the right way like i
00:04:46.160 | said i pretty much went from high school to the nba because i never got to play i never got to really
00:04:51.680 | play college basketball because of the injuries so coach malone i appreciate you um you know helping
00:04:58.560 | me out helping me grow as a player and uh really i remember i really broke out in the bubble um
00:05:06.080 | it was really my rookie year my rookie year i did not play but then my second year in the nba was
00:05:11.600 | really considered my rookie year because um it was my first year playing so we played for a while and
00:05:17.680 | then we had that hiatus because of covid i don't even know if you say hi i don't even know if i said
00:05:23.440 | hiatus right but we had that break because of covid and then we went out to the bubble and um i actually
00:05:29.520 | got a lot of playing time for the first time because a lot of guys were injured or not injured a lot of
00:05:34.400 | guys had covid so when i went out there i immediately was starting and um i really broke out you know
00:05:40.880 | i think i had three 30 point games in a row um and coach malone really threw me into the fire in those
00:05:47.360 | playoffs really as a as a rookie um so i appreciate you coach malone as well so i'm really excited for
00:05:59.840 | this next chapter out here in brooklyn i think um over there in denver i felt like my my ceiling had
00:06:04.320 | kind of plateaued um you know we we have a very um we we just have a way of playing you know and
00:06:11.600 | how joker plays how jamal plays that two-man game is very potent and um you know that's how we play
00:06:20.640 | and i am so appreciative of the way we play we end up winning a championship but i do feel like
00:06:26.080 | like my ceiling in denver kind of plateaued a little bit and i'm excited for this next chapter in brooklyn
00:06:31.680 | for sure it's crazy because me and cam are actually boys uh we're pretty we're pretty cool you know we're
00:06:38.640 | even having talks of swapping homes you know he might stay in my crib in denver i might stay where he lived in
00:06:44.800 | uh brooklyn um but anyways obviously denver got a great player and a great dude and i'm excited
00:06:51.280 | excited for him to be able to finally you know compete for a championship over there
00:06:55.840 | and i myself am excited to expand my game and be able to do what i do
00:07:00.080 | um yeah but i want to get into the story of how i found out i got traded
00:07:06.960 | i actually was on the plane over here to saint tropez and um you know i'm over here trying to
00:07:14.320 | enjoy my time before i get back to work before i head back to denver and get back to to work and i'm
00:07:20.000 | laying down on the plane and uh i got on the wi-fi and i saw a text i got from my agent and from um
00:07:27.200 | someone in the front office over in denver i think it was john wallace
00:07:32.240 | just saying you know yo can you get on a phone call it's urgent and i immediately knew what was
00:07:37.600 | up i immediately knew it was what was going on um so i couldn't get on the phone with either of them
00:07:43.520 | because i'm on the plane you know um and i just started texting back and forth my agent and i was
00:07:49.200 | like man where are we going like where am i where am i headed to and he told me brooklyn and my first
00:07:54.320 | thought was just like kind of shock honestly because i think two days prior i was walking around
00:08:02.160 | my uh my home in denver i actually was staying at the uh the four seasons residences and i was down
00:08:08.640 | there at the bar or something and um i ran into john wallace i didn't even know he was the newly
00:08:15.760 | appointed gm because i uh yeah i'm off social media so i had no idea i ran into him we sat down we talked
00:08:24.080 | for a while and he started telling me you know how we're going to build the team who he wants to get
00:08:29.600 | who he wants to surround surround us with you know and who he wants in the second unit he wants to find
00:08:36.080 | a point guard that could feed me the ball in the second unit all this stuff getting me really excited
00:08:40.880 | but i also think he heard in my voice that i kind of you know wanted to to grow my game i didn't want to
00:08:48.400 | plateau i want to keep getting better throughout my career and i think he also heard that but i was i had
00:08:53.280 | no idea you know from that conversation i'm thinking we're going to make some changes we're going to move
00:08:57.920 | some things around i'm going to feel more comfortable next year um coming back in with that second unit
00:09:03.360 | and uh i was excited for it so when i heard the news when i got the text from john wallace and uh
00:09:08.960 | you know my my uh agent i was shocked but um at the end of the day that's the nba that's the business
00:09:14.640 | and i have no hard feelings and i'm excited for the nuggets organization because like i said
00:09:20.640 | previously i think it was a clip that went viral last year but yeah if we don't win a championship
00:09:25.440 | within this next year or two after winning you know they're going to make some changes you know nicola's
00:09:30.720 | in his prime jamal's in his prime and if we're not stacking the championships we may have to make a
00:09:37.280 | change and you know for me it was tough because i wasn't able to play the way i wanted to play i
00:09:42.320 | wasn't able to hoop the way i wanted to hoop in the playoffs because of you know my shoulder it's still
00:09:48.080 | a little messed up you can kind of see it's a little popped out still still healing up but i was i was
00:09:53.120 | severely limited in what i could do in the playoffs and um that was hard that that's the the taste that i
00:10:00.400 | left with the nuggets fans and organization you know i really felt like i i let the team down this past
00:10:08.320 | playoffs you know i went out there and i tried but i was playing with one arm like legitimately my whole
00:10:12.560 | shoulder was popped out torn i was putting a needle in it every other day trying to get the pain down
00:10:17.600 | but regardless i went out there and i tried to play after the shoulder injury and i just wasn't able to
00:10:23.840 | be myself and i wasn't able to help the team and um you know that hurts that's that's that's how
00:10:30.160 | my journey with the nuggets ended but everything happens for a reason you know if you know me you
00:10:37.200 | know i'm a man of faith you know i believe i believe in god and you know i tried to put my faith
00:10:42.160 | into him in these in these situations i know that he's not going to abandon me you know there's a verse
00:10:47.760 | that says those who he began a good work in he's going to complete and i do believe that um so i'm excited
00:10:55.760 | for this next chapter i know i'm just rambling but um it's good to be able to get this out before i i
00:11:02.800 | go to brooklyn tomorrow and meet with everybody it's just good to express my gratitude to the nuggets
00:11:08.640 | and everything and kind of tell y'all how i'm feeling with everything um i'm very excited and i'm ready to
00:11:16.160 | to get this next chapter of my life rolling uh yeah so i got this little camera you know what i'm
00:11:21.200 | saying i'm gonna be dropping more videos once in a while whenever you know something comes to mind i'm
00:11:26.080 | gonna i'm gonna try to get back on this curious mike thing a little bit um so i appreciate y'all tuning in
00:11:31.600 | curious mike out