Michael Porter Jr.’s recent back surgery means he can’t play actual basketball right now, although he and his camp are still hopeful he can make an appearance for the Denver Nuggets at some point in his rookie year.
While he can’t do much on the hardwood, he can hop on the sticks and play plenty of virtual basketball, which is apparently what he’s been doing to occupy his downtime post-surgery. Porter Jr. took to Twitter to put out a challenge to his fans to play him in NBA 2K18 “for the bag” and legitimately took on challengers for money and, apparently, sneakers.
https://twitter.com/MPJr/status/1024452248565215233
The first victim of MPJ’s 2K rampage lost $200 as Porter Jr. used the Wizards to trounce the Nuggets.
https://twitter.com/MPJr/status/1024473185348083712
Nuggets fan Royal Gomez was the second of those to take up MPJ’s challenge, and got the invite to come to Porter Jr.’s apartment in Denver. As Gomez told Denver Stiffs, he arrived with his cousin in the middle of MPJ playing his brother for $20 and they set the stipulations for their game that included Gomez putting up his Off-White UNC Jordan 1s.
“They sent us to his apartment building, his little brother and sister were the only other people there,” Gomez said. “It was me and my cousin…when we got into the building he told us the wrong room so we called him and he told us to walk right in, door unlocked and everything. He was pretty nice but was focused on playing his brother in 2k which was for $20. I told him on Twitter that I’d be betting the shoes so he knew but he said he can’t even wear them so it was a little pointless to put them up for grabs, what was strange was he didn’t want to bet what the shoes were worth, which is $800, he only wanted to wager $100.”
I’d like to point out that my man got hustled from the jump, as he put his $800 sneakers on the line for the chance to win $100 from Porter Jr. It’s his fault for agreeing to such a ridiculous bet, but as he said, he was just thrilled about the chance to hang out with MPJ. Gomez played as the Celtics while Porter Jr. selected the Wizards, and after what Gomez described as a “pretty serious” game that was close throughout, MPJ came out on top and kept the sneakers for himself.
https://twitter.com/MPJr/status/1024506754652987392
Porter Jr. is, of course, signed to Puma so he notes he’ll likely have to do a giveaway of some sort. The third “victim” lost another $100 to MPJ as his Wizards topped the Celtics in the tightest game of the night.
https://twitter.com/MPJr/status/1024516832097492992
It’s pretty incredible that Porter Jr. is out here hustling fans out of cash and sneakers in person over video games, but if nothing else these fans will have a great story to tell about the time they lost one-on-one to an NBA player at their apartment.
