The day after the Nuggets won the championship, Nicodemus Christopher received a text message that he knew shouldn’t have surprised him. But it was the day after the Nuggets won the championship, so yeah, somehow they still did it.

“Mike drives me crazy,” Christopher recalls, “as far as going to the weight room: ‘Bro, the season has started. Let’s go.'”

Christopher has been Michael Porter Jr.’s strength coach for eight years, coming off an unpredictable season filled with injury frustration when Porter was a top draft prospect at Missouri. Perhaps fittingly, this was the year that started the chain reaction that led to Porter’s text. Three back surgeries later, in June 2023, he found himself craving training because he couldn’t allow himself to give up the habits that allowed him to stay healthy during a championship season.

“People always talk about how your body needs rest and a day off,” Porter told the Denver Post. “I don’t really believe in that. … Many things that might be just icing on the cake for others have become a necessity for me because of my injuries. I can’t take days off and just let my body relax. I need to keep going, stay active and get stronger to support my body after the injuries I’ve been through.”

This has been Porter’s dogma for years. That’s how an athlete known for his injury history played more games last season than anyone else in Denver’s starting lineup: 93 of 94, including the playoffs. As a result, he has become the team leader in total minutes played this season. He averaged 36 per game, 4.2 more than his previous career high.

The Nuggets are relying on Porter more than ever, and he’s coming through with 18.6 points, 7.2 rebounds and 2.9 assists. He served as both a starting three-man and a backup four-man, often running with the second unit. And he’s operating more with the ball in his hands, averaging nearly 14 more touches per game and navigating to the rim to score 39.2% of his points in the game – 10% more than last year.

“The same drive that drove me to be the best in the world before injuries is the same drive that now allows me to be on the court after surgery,” Porter told The Post after appearing in last week Memphis had finished a pregame shootout. “I don’t know if my performance ceiling is still that high after the injuries and all that, but I think I have the drive. A one-on-one ride, so to speak. That’s what once motivated me to be the No. 1 (recruit) in the world. … If I didn’t have that drive, I wouldn’t play most games. I probably wouldn’t play in the NBA.”

To understand how Porter continues to evolve as a player – and how he has become a pillar of consistency – you need to understand his behind-the-scenes training program.

The 26-year-old trains six days a week in the offseason, an “unconventional” schedule that includes on-court drills and weight room drills, according to Christopher. There’s an upper body day, then a lower body day, and then a “gap day” where Porter analyzes how his body responded to previous workouts and adapts the next one to his immediate needs. Autonomy over how you use time is crucial.

“He’s very aware of how his body feels,” Christopher said. “When you have so many conversations with specialists, so many conversations with doctors, so many conversations with your sports medicine staff… you talk to medical professionals every day for at least eight months after surgery, you get a mini-course in physiology. So I think it’s fair to say that Michael has taken quite a few mini-courses in physiology.”

That means if Porter isn’t feeling as bouncy as he should be on Monday, he’ll work on minimizing his ground contact time on his next rest day. Go up to grab a rebound, come down and go back up as quickly as possible. If Porter’s back feels a little stiff in the morning, he could devote an entire day to hip mobility and core stability. (Maintaining core strength is a regular cornerstone of his training anyway to proactively address his spinal problems.)

“I think whenever you have multiple injuries to your body, you start learning the medical terms,” Porter said. “You start learning the names of different body parts, and you start to really get comfortable with your body in a way that you wouldn’t have if you’d never gotten injured. … For many things I only know what I need. I just know my body and become almost like my own rehab therapist. My own trainer in the weight room.”

Porter is proud of this self-proclaimed job title. And it’s not just limited to the off-season. On the way, he says: “In the evenings, when no one is there, I do things in the weight room.” It has become a mental reflex, a way to use dead time. Denver’s younger players have noticed. “He has one of the best work ethics in the league,” Peyton Watson said. Zeke Nnaji was inspired to become more consistent in his shooting practice after observing Porter’s habitual presence in the practice gym. When Porter and Christopher disagree, it’s almost always because Christopher wants to give him a day off and Porter refuses.

“Most people have no idea what engine Michael Porter Jr. has,” Christopher said. “And that’s not meant to demean anyone. There are fewer than 0.1% of people who can endure three surgeries as professional athletes and come out better afterwards. They have no idea how devastating and physical three back surgeries are.”

To understand this engine, Christopher even tried to tailor certain off-season training sessions to the results of a psychological evaluation in which Porter took part. The dominant neurotransmitter in his brain, according to the test, was dopamine. “Once we understand what your brain is craving, because your brain is what sends the signal to the body, we can now design your workouts based on the things your brain is craving,” Christopher said.

Porter himself doesn’t really concern himself with these nuances in the context of a basketball drill or training session. He’s more concerned with understanding each other off the pitch. “I mean, a lot of people are dopamine driven,” he said. “You know, I’m just trying to avoid quick hits of dopamine. I try to stay away from the phone. I try to stay away from TikTok. All of these things that I think can be partially saved for the game. And I sometimes manage to do that well; Sometimes that’s bad.”

Nevertheless, the use of neurological tests primarily speaks to the specificity with which Porter questions himself as an athlete. He also invested heavily in health equipment: a hyperbaric chamber, a cold plunge pool, an infrared sauna.