At the beginning of training camp, hope springs eternal. So does hype.
Michael Porter Jr. — who, if nothing else, is a reporter’s dream (and a public relations concern) given his willingness to meet every question with a long, sincere answer — spoke after Wednesday’s practice. He shouted out Brooklyn’s stable of young point guards, but then unprompted, said: “Top to bottom, I’ve been really impressed with a lot of players. Noah’s taken a leap to me, from what I saw in games from last year to now.
He’s taken a leap. Tyrese [Martin] has really been probably the most impressive player that I’ve seen on the team so far, because I didn’t know a lot about him. But he’s been consistently killing through scrimmages, through open runs. He’s a player that can slide in that point guard place but can also play the two. He can pass the ball. He’s been really impressive.
Almost every Net on the roster has received compliments, on or off the record, through the first week of training camp. But there’s plenty of buzz around Tyrese Martin, who last season signed a training camp deal, then a two-way deal, then a standard contract. With only 16 NBA games under his belt before 2024-25, he made 60 appearances for the Nets, averaging 9/4/2 on 53.3 TS%.
Martin didn’t exactly light the world on fire, but he went from NBA afterthought to potential rotation piece. It’s a great sign that the 26-year-old is a training camp standout, competing against many players much younger than he is. Does it mean a ton for his NBA future? Not exactly, but it’s better than nothing.
For example, the Nets and their fans probably wish Dariq Whitehead was receiving such buzz. We haven’t heard anything about the third-year guard, still just 21 years old but with only 22 NBA appearances under his belt. Whitehead hasn’t even been productive in the G League over two seasons, sporting just a 51 TS% down there. Perhaps the parade of lower-leg injuries since graduating high school is just too much to overcome.
But at least Whitehead had a healthy summer in 2025, something he pointed out at Media Day: “Not being able to do what I had needed to do the past three summers, being able to work out, work on my body. Just the difference I felt from the last game of last season to now and just being able to trust my body, how comfortable I am with just handling things that I’d done before, is just night and day.”
Head Coach Jordi Fernández says he has seen that work pay off: “I can tell you he’s gotten better. You look at his body from the summer, how hard he’s worked, he’s already gotten better and keeps taking advantage of his opportunities. I think that’s a big part of it. This training camp and preseason games are going to be important and we want all of our players, not just Dariq, to try to take advantage of that.”
These are the morsels of hope Whitehead believers must cling onto; there hasn’t been much else. No off-the-cuff compliments from teammates. No social media posts from the Brooklyn Nets highlighting Whitehead, not even clips of him buried in their practice posts…
At practice Wednesday, Fernández was asked about what a roster full of off-ball wings means for Whitehead. Forget Michael Porter Jr., Ziaire Williams, and Terance Mann, is he really going to play over Tyrese Martin? The head coach side-stepped the question.
“I’m excited to watch all of these different guys compete … For the most part, then players will play in the rotation. So, I want that responsibility. And guess what? Maybe I make a mistake, but I hope they stay with it and they keep showing what they’re able to do. At the end of the day, even if I make a mistake, my assistants will tell me and if he has an opportunity he’ll take advantage. Everything will work out for everybody.”
The Nets have until October 31 to pick up Whitehead’s 2026-27 option, which would be the fourth and final year of his rookie contract. One year ago, I wrote that Whitehead’s upcoming sophomore season was something of a make-or-break year. He had to show something. Many read that as a statement of hyperbole, but less than one month away from his extension date, it’s time to ask if Whitehead has shown enough, or if injuries will be the story of his NBA career.
Michael Porter Jr. was once in that position. Like Whitehead, MPJ was one of the tip-top college basketball recruits in the nation. An NBA star in waiting. But back injury after back injury limited his explosiveness; Porter Jr. missed his whole rookie season after to falling to the end of the draft lottery, and his 2021-22 season was cut short by another herniated disk, leading to his third back surgery.
Since then, Porter Jr. has appeared in 220 out of 246 possible regular-season games. He won a championship with the Denver Nuggets in 2023, indispensable as an off-ball scorer but wholly reliable as a big body who could rebound and rotate around the rim. Porter Jr. never became the Kevin Durant-like monster he was projected as in high school, but he carved out a wildly successful NBA career.
“A lot of it is a lot of hard work on my body,” he said. “The other part is a lot of hard work when it comes to my mind and my emotional state, my mental state, my spiritual state. I feel like all that combines together. Nicole Sachs is the name of a woman who helped me a lot, overcome some of the back problems, and I didn’t realize how much of that actually stemmed from the mental side of things and the stress and all that. So once I kind of put all those pieces together, and I didn’t just pay attention to the physical side of things, I was able to have a very well-rounded approach to my rehab. And since then, I’ve been…I haven’t had any problems with my back since. It’s been about three, two-and-a-half, three years since I kind of figured that out.”
Porter Jr. continued to explain his belief in the mind-body connection, and how a strong mental state can contribute to physical healing: “I know what helped me heal, and I feel like helping bring that onto the scene would be a cool thing for me. And for players that are dealing with chronic things — or after surgery — they’re tentative to move a certain way. I feel like I can be a big part of bringing that onto the scene.”
Roll your eyes if you wish. But of all the things Porter Jr. has said in front of a camera since last season ended, this is the most inspiring. Brooklyn’s new veteran leader has transformed his NBA career in the face of herniated disks, three back surgeries, damage to his sciatic nerve, and other gruesome troubles.
“I needed to try something new after the third surgery,” he explained.
“People underestimate how tough mentally Mike and players that went through serious injuries are,” said Fernández, who was an assistant coach in Denver during the thick of MPJ’s health issues. “What he’s accomplished with everything he had to go through is very impressive. I give him a lot of credit.”
Michael Porter Jr. is a healthy 6’10”, and an incredible shooter. Through all the injuries, his size and bread-and-butter skill never left him. Even still, he overcame a brutal injury history, won a championship ring, and signed a contract so lucrative it led him to the Brooklyn Nets, where he is now the most recognizable player, for better or worse, on a rebuilding team. As he excitedly admitted on Wednesday, he now has a chance to expand his game.
As a 6’4” guard, Dariq Whitehead doesn’t have that same cushion; the explosion has to be there. But just maybe, he too can find a path to NBA relevancy, putting his injury history in the past. The sadder, more likely outcome, is that Whitehead will see his career in Brooklyn come to an end sooner rather than later. Nobody is doubting that Whitehead has pushed himself to the limit, working as hard as he can in overcoming his injury troubles.
Sometimes, you’re just dealt a really crappy hand. Hopefully he can flip it on its head.
