The Nuggets are trading Michael Porter Jr. and a 2032 unprotected first-round pick to the Brooklyn Nets for Cam Johnson, a league source told The Denver Post on Monday.
The stunning trade, which breaks up a core that won Denver its first NBA championship, won’t officially go through until July 6, a source told The Post. Both players have two years remaining on their current contracts, but Johnson’s $21.1 million salary next season provides Denver with significant cap relief compared to Porter’s $38.3 million.
The Nuggets moved out of the luxury tax and more than $14 million under the first apron with the deal, giving them access to the full non-taxpayer mid-level exception — a roster-building mechanism used to sign free agents. Basically, that means they’ll have the flexibility to pursue more expensive players than before the trade, when they were limited to a spending ceiling of $5.7 million in annual salary.
The addition of old friend Bruce Brown on a veteran minimum contract later Monday night barely left a dent in those ambitions. Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon and Porter had accounted for 82% of Denver’s roster payroll last season. The absence of Porter leaves Jokic and Murray as the only two players with a salary north of $25 million in 2025-26.
Denver also created a $16.8 million trade exception with the deal. For the first time in more than two years, the Nuggets can take back more salary in a trade than they send out, as long as they remain under the first apron after said trade.
The 2032 first-round pick sent to Brooklyn was attached in order to address the salary discrepancy between Porter and Johnson, and the subsequent flexibility for Denver. Without that pick, the Nuggets no longer have a tradeable future first-rounder.
Johnson could be worth that sacrifice, though. He averaged 18.8 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game last season, his sixth in the NBA. At 6-foot-8, he supplies the Nuggets with a similar combination of size and shooting to Porter. He converted 39% of his 3s last year on 7.2 attempts per game. Porter shot 39.5% on 6.4 attempts.
Johnson, 29, should be a defensive upgrade with more ball-in-hand play-making ability as well. Before the Nets, he was an NBA Sixth Man of the Year candidate on a Phoenix team that reached the NBA Finals in 2021. The Suns sent him to Brooklyn the following season in the now-infamous trade for Kevin Durant.
This blockbuster trade by the Nuggets was executed by their new front-office leadership duo, Ben Tenzer and Jon Wallace, who were introduced together six days earlier.
The move also occurred in stark contrast to the team’s recent public messaging. After a second consecutive second-round exit from the playoffs, KSE vice chairman Josh Kroenke declared at the beginning of the offseason that he believed the team’s answers were internal. Even Tenzer predicted after the NBA draft last week that free agency would be the focal point of Denver’s transactions, rather than trades.
Porter, who turned 27 the day before the trade, was drafted 14th overall by the Nuggets in 2018. Often the center of trade rumors, most recently involving Zach LaVine before the 2025 mid-season trade deadline, he overcame three back surgeries to play 345 games for Denver and 75 more in the playoffs, contributing massively to the 2023 championship run.
In the 2025 playoffs, he attempted to grit his teeth and play through a sprained AC joint in his left shoulder, an injury that he said would have sidelined him for multiple weeks if it had been the regular season.
Those playoffs turned out to be his last stand in Denver.
“Everyone in this locker room means a lot to me,” Porter said after the season ended in May. “I’m not sure if it’ll be the same exact group next year. But whatever’s next for me, whatever’s next for this team, I know that the guys will be ready for it.”
Want more Nuggets news? Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis.
