{"id":1030794,"date":"2026-08-29T10:56:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T10:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1030794\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T10:56:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T10:56:14","slug":"michael-porter-jr-right-about-fall-of-nuggets-dynasty-wrong-about-kcp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1030794\/","title":{"rendered":"MIchael Porter Jr. right about fall of Nuggets dynasty, wrong about KCP"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to KCP, MPJ had us ROFL.<\/a><\/p>\n

Team Grading The Week raised eyebrows and perked up ears a few days back when former Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr. lamented the break-up\/transition\/evolution of Denver\u2019s roster over the last five off-seasons. After the \u201923 playoffs, and an NBA title, they lost Bruce Brown, a massive contributor off the bench, to free agency. After \u201924, they lost wing guard\/defensive specialist Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to another free-agent contract. After \u201925, they traded away MPJ to the Nets. After \u201926, they traded Peyton Watson to the Cavs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why they let Pope (go),\u201d Porter wondered, out loud, via MPJ\u2019s Curious Mike YouTube channel.<\/a> \u201cThat was the beginning of our downfall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Downfall? Strong, but can\u2019t disagree, either.<\/p>\n

Were the Nuggets\u2019 postseason fades in \u201925 and \u201926 due entirely to the loss of KCP?<\/p>\n

As usual, MPJ was half right.<\/p>\n

As Porter himself pointed out, the Nuggets without KCP pushed the eventual NBA champs, the Oklahoma City Thunder, to seven games in the second round of the \u201925 postseason \u2014 and that was with MPJ able to use only one working shoulder.<\/p>\n

Now, in MPJ\u2019s defense, there\u2019s the defense. In the two seasons since Caldwell-Pope\u2019s been gone, the Nuggets\u2019 numbers on the defensive end of the floor have started to crater. Denver ranked 15th in defensive rating during the \u201922-23 regular season and No. 8 in \u201923-24. With KCP MIA? No. 21 in \u201924-25, 21st in \u201925-26.<\/a><\/p>\n

As for perimeter defense, per NBA.com, the Nuggets ranked third in fewest opponent 3-point makes allowed in \u201922-23 and finished second in fewest allowed in \u201923-24 with KCP leading the charge along the perimeter.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets two years ago slid to 20th in opponent 3-pointers made in \u201924-25 \u2014 and ranked 18th in 3-point makes allowed in \u201925-26. Save us, Dave Joerger!<\/a><\/p>\n

MPJ on Nuggets\u2019 \u201cdownfall\u201d \u00a0\u2014 C<\/p>\n

Caldwell-Pope was the perfect, spot-up, fourth or fifth option for the Nuggets of \u201922-24. On the other hand, that line of KCP thinking brings us back to some of the same revisionist-history stuff that peppers online conversations about Christian Braun.<\/a><\/p>\n

GTW\u2019s hoops wonks tend to pinpoint the Nuggets\u2019 \u201cdownfall\u201d to Game 7 of that fateful, second-round Timberwolves series in the spring of 2024. Which means KCP was still here for the beginning of any \u201cfade,\u201d to be fair.<\/p>\n

Again, per NBA tracking data, the veteran stopper was considered to have been \u201cguarding\u201d Minnesota star Anthony Edwards for 39:29 minutes over that crucial seven-game, second-round series two years ago. If you read those 39-and-a-half minutes as the stat line for a single game, check out Ant\u2019s totals: 60 points, 13 assists, seven turnovers and seven 3-pointers on 16 attempts from beyond the arc.<\/a><\/p>\n

Now, Edwards was unguardable for most of that series, to be fair. But given an assignment that falls under the definition of \u201cYou had ONE job,\u201d KCP didn\u2019t really do it, did he?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still went Game 7 with Minnesota after (former Nuggets VP) Tim Connolly kind of built Minnesota to try and beat us with the two bigs. Because then you can put KAT (Karl-Anthony Towns) on Joker and you get Rudy Gobert kind of roam.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they kind of built that team to try to beat us, and they got us in Game 7.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sure did.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets overpaid for MPJ, just as they did for Zeke Nnaji. Braun is a wait-and-see who\u2019s left much of Nuggets Nation with a bitter taste in its mouth. The better front offices managed to get value from contracts for future performance, not just to reward past numbers.<\/p>\n

According to Basketball-Reference.com, Caldwell-Pope put up a 112 Defensive Rating per 100 opponent possessions two seasons ago, but that went up to 121 per 100 with Memphis in \u201925-26. Braun recorded a 118 Defensive Rating (DR) in \u201924-25 and a 120 DR per 100 last year. Not KCP good, but catching up.<\/p>\n

Porter at least threw a little compliment to the \u201926-27 Nuggets while waxing nostalgic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like slowly (breaking it up) \u2026 but they still can be called (a contender), as long as you got Joker, Jamal, AG (Aaron Gordon),\u201d the former Nugget reflected. \u201cDeebo\u2019s (DeMar DeRozan)\u2019s over there,<\/a> Cam (Johnson)\u2019s obviously a good player, CB (Christian Braun) \u2026 I mean, they\u2019re still good. But we had some camaraderie (among that championship core).\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver\u2019s teams.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to KCP, MPJ had us ROFL. Team Grading The Week raised eyebrows and perked up…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1030795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[17654,8613,1339,25868,42780,58917,8605,88627,24115,20734,1370,25480,3663,17660,1260,7198,194387,5847,50066,17662,88628,62,2632,67,132,68,50067],"class_list":["post-1030794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-aaron-gordon","tag-anthony-edwards","tag-basketball","tag-bruce-brown","tag-christian-braun","tag-demar-derozan","tag-denver","tag-grading-the-week","tag-karl-anthony-towns","tag-kentavious-caldwell-pope","tag-latest-headlines","tag-michael-porter","tag-minnesota","tag-more-nuggets-news","tag-nba","tag-nuggets","tag-nuggets-takes","tag-oklahoma","tag-peyton-watson","tag-rudy-gobert","tag-sean-keeler","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-zeke-nnaji"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117178439264539112","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1030794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1030795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1030794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1030794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1030794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}