Grade The Trade: Michael Porter Jr. is sent East in this monster offseason proposal

The Denver Nuggets Perspective

For the Denver Nuggets, one of the biggest things this trade would do for them is to help their depth. They would add another top-8 caliber rotation piece (sending out one and receiving two).

This trade also helps differentiate their salary cap situation as well as helping their depth. Instead of having one player making $38 million, they will have two players combining to make roughly that much. That makes things more manageable and easier to deal with in the future if they have to (in terms of trading away players). Also, with the player option in the third year for Bogi, it also allows them to get off of money at that point if they wish (which they could not do now with Porter Jr.'s deal fully vesting).

Hunter actually had arguably the best stretch of his career this past season after he returned from injury (especially when he was coming off the bench). After his return, Hunter averaged 16.2 points and 3.8 rebounds per game on 45.7% shooting from the field and 37.4% shooting from three across 33 games. In the 18 games in that stretch where he came off the bench (before Saddiq Bey's injury pushed him back into the starting lineup), he averaged 16 points and three rebounds per game but did so on 49.1% shooting from the field and 42% shooting from three.

For his five-year career so far, Hunter has averages of 14.3 points and 4.1 rebounds per game on 44.7% shooting from the field and 36.3% shooting from three. Injuries have also been an issue for Hunter throughout his career. He missed 48 games in 2020/21 (as well as the final two playoff rounds in the Hawks' run to the Eastern Conference Finals that season), 29 games in 2021/22, 15 games in 2022/23, and then 25 games this past season. So, on average, he has missed 29.25 regular season games per season over the last four seasons.

While Hunter's defense has been a point of contention among Hawks fans, I still think he is a good defender. The issue in Atlanta has been that he has pretty much been the only quality Hawks defender. To me, he is more suited to being a team's second or third-best defender. I believe that it would do him well to be able to split key defensive duties with Aaron Gordon in Denver.

Bogdanovic is one of the best bench scorers in the league. It is crazy to me that he did not get more Sixth Man of the Year hype this past season (he averaged 16.9 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 3.1 assists per game on the year while shooting 42.8% from the field and 37.4% from three).

In his four seasons with the Hawks, he has averaged 15.7 points, 3.5 rebounds, and three assists per game on 44.1% shooting from the field and 39.1% shooting from three. He just feels like a walking 15/3/3 on 43%/39%/88% shooting splits off the bench. That is very valuable, especially for a team like the Nuggets whose lack of go-to bench scoring was a significant factor in their Conference Semifinals loss to the Timberwolves this season.

All in all, I believe that this trade would help both the Hawks and the Nuggets.