Michael Porter Jr. and Egor Demin took part in one of those NBA 2K27 challenge setups on the latest episode of Deflected, and Porter didn’t waste much time making things entertaining. Once he got hit with the question about which teammate would fail at a 9-to-5, he zeroed in on Danny Wolf.
“Honestly, all of them. But I think I’mma go with Danny Wolf.
‘Cause like, he’ll get anxious. Like, he doesn’t like to sit still and work for 8 hours at a time.”
Porter didn’t exactly frame it as a compliment to the rest of the roster either. Still, he singled out Wolf, the Nets’ No. 27 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, as the guy most likely to struggle with the grind of a regular job.
Then Porter turned the question into a little personal history. He said he actually did clock in for a 9-to-5 while growing up.
“I worked a 9-to-5 for a while at a snow cone stand,” Porter said. “… My parents bought one and made all of us kids work.
Actually, I’m glad I had that experience of working like a real job, like clocking in. I was making like eight bucks an hour.”
Demin quickly pushed back, joking that it “isn’t a real job.” Porter stuck to his story, saying those shifts lasted six hours, but the 20-year-old wasn’t convinced.
The other classic question in the game came later: which teammate would he not let date his sister? Demin looked over at Porter with a grin, and for good reason. Porter has been around enough controversy that the room already had a built-in edge to it.
When Porter answered correctly, Demin had to name somebody, and he landed on Ben Saraf. Porter, who has three sisters - Bri, Cierra, and Jayda - said that was a solid choice. Then both players made their stance clear.
“I’m not letting none of these dudes date my sister,” Porter said.
It’s the kind of answer athletes give all the time when this question comes up. They know their teammates too well for that.
Porter ended up winning the session 14-5, so Demin was the one doing most of the answering. The first prompt asked which NBA player first really got him.
“The one game I could say it was probably Luka [Doncic],” Demin said. “It was like pretty bad… He’s the one like you can’t do much against that step-back.”
Porter followed up by asking if that was Demin’s “Welcome to the NBA” moment, and Demin agreed. Doncic’s lone game against him wasn’t a monster scoring night - he finished with 24 points on 8-18 shooting when the teams met on Feb. 3 - but it still left a mark.
Demin’s rookie year ended early because of plantar fasciitis in his left foot. He wrapped up the season averaging 10.3 points, 3.2 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 0.8 steals, and 0.3 blocks per game after being taken with the No. 8 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
Porter, meanwhile, came through in his first year with Brooklyn. After arriving in a 2025 trade from the Denver Nuggets, he posted 24.2 points, 7.1 rebounds, 3.0 assists, 1.1 steals, and 0.3 blocks per game. Now he’ll look to build on that in 2026-27.
In Other News...
Nets Just Locked In A Familiar Big Worth Watching
Grant Nelson is back in the Nets orbit on a two-way contract, giving Brooklyn a familiar face after he spent last season moving between the big club and Long Island. The move also fills all three of the teams two-way slots, a sign that the organization wanted to keep a close eye on a player it already knows well. Nelsons path has included a knee injury, but he still managed to show promise in the G League and got a brief look in the NBA.
His summer was quieter than he would have liked, since he did not play in Summer League while working his way through recovery. Even so, he stayed around the team and traveled with Brooklyn during the offseason, which suggests the Nets have kept him in the conversation as they sort out the back end of the roster. Now the question is how quickly he can turn that familiarity into a real role once the regular work begins. [Read more 🡒]
Nets Fans Already Sound Divided On How Bad This Season Could Get
A recent offseason fan poll suggests Brooklyn supporters are already bracing for a long 2026-27 season, even before the roster picture fully settles. Most respondents, 58%, think the Nets will land between the 11th and 15th seed in the Eastern Conference, while 36% are still holding out hope for a Play-In Tournament push and a small 6% believe the group can climb into the top six and avoid that scramble altogether.
The spread says as much about the uncertainty around the roster as it does about the fan base itself, which has learned to read the franchise through a skeptical lens after a string of offseason changes. For a team trying to sell progress, the bigger question now is whether the divide among fans is just early pessimism or a sign that expectations are slipping faster than the front office would like. [Read more 🡒]
Ben Simmons Is Back With A Chance Nets Fans Never Saw
Ben Simmons is back in the NBA on a one-year, $3.5 million deal with the Sacramento Kings, a fresh turn for a player whose last season away from the floor made it feel like his next stop might be as interesting as it was uncertain. For Brooklyn fans, it adds another chapter to a story that once held so much promise, only now with Simmons arriving in Sacramento after spending the 2025-26 season out of action.
The Kings put him through medical exams and workouts before signing off, and by all accounts he showed strong health heading into the new year. Simmons also kept busy away from basketball, including owning a sport fishing team, a reminder that his time off was not spent waiting around for a comeback so much as living a very different version of the offseason while the league moved on without him. [Read more 🡒]