The Warriors’ flirtation with Michael Porter Jr. never got off the ground for one big reason: Steve Kerr reportedly wasn’t interested.
According to Yahoo Sports’ Kevin O’Connor, Kerr was the key voice behind Golden State passing on the Nets forward, even after the Warriors had explored a deal before the 2026 NBA trade deadline.
“Michael Porter Jr.? Sources say that Steve Kerr didn't want MPJ in February, and there is little reason to believe he would want him now,” O’Connor wrote.
That report adds a new layer to a situation that had mostly been viewed as a matter of price. In June, Michael Scotto of HoopsHype reported that Golden State had looked into Porter and was willing to talk about including a first-round pick in a package. Scotto also said Terance Mann came up in broader discussions, though bringing him into the mix would have required a third team and made the deal tougher to pull off.
At the time, the simplest explanation was that the two sides never found common ground on value. Brooklyn was said to be seeking major draft compensation, with multiple reports indicating the Nets wanted at least one first-round pick and, in some cases, more. Golden State kicked the tires, but the talks never turned into a deal.
O’Connor’s reporting suggests the holdup may have been more than just a bidding issue.
Kerr has not publicly laid out his reasoning, so the question now is whether his resistance was tied to Porter himself or to what the Warriors would have had to send out to get him. Either way, the cost was always going to matter.
Golden State has spent the last several years trying to stay competitive around Stephen Curry without stripping away too much of its future. A first-round pick, or more, for Porter may have felt like too much to pay, especially for a team trying to preserve flexibility.
There’s also the basketball side of it. The Warriors have long built their offense around movement, passing and versatility on defense. Porter brings scoring and shooting, but Kerr has usually leaned toward players who slide cleanly into that structure instead of chasing talent for talent’s sake.
Without Kerr’s backing, a trade like that was never likely to gain real traction.
Porter, 28, delivered the best season of his career in 2025-26, putting up 24.2 points, 7.1 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game while shooting 46.3% from the field and 36.3% from three. He became a central part of Jordi Fernández’s offense and heads into next season as one of Brooklyn’s most important players.
For Golden State, the pursuit appears to be over. NBA insider Brett Siegel previously reported that the Warriors are no longer chasing Porter after exploring a deal before the deadline, and O’Connor’s report helps explain why those talks never moved any further.
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