A devastated Jamal Murray broke into tears on the Denver Nuggets’ bus on their way back to the airport after having played the Warriors in San Francisco on April 12, 2021. The then 22-year-old point guard had just suffered the feared ACL tear in his left knee, and he just felt to voice his frustration, and his distress looking into the future.
“Are you guys going to trade me? I’m damaged goods. Are you going to trade me now?” he said to coach Michael Malone looking for answers and imploring compassion and empathy.
“Hell no!” Malone said while hugging him. “You’re ours. We love you, we’re going to help you get back, and you’re going to be a better player for it,” said the Nuggets coach.
The tough Murray, the guy who grew up doing push-ups in the snow in Kitchener and holding piping hot tea cups with his tights while doing squads, was in floods of tears two years later. He didn’t grab his knee. Instead, the coveted Larry O’Brien trophy that crowned the NBA champions.
His backward hat harkened to the bad boy that he likes to challenge everyone, but the tears coming out from his eyes touched his defiant look and reminded of the suffering of his comeback, the stamp of a poignant redemption.
But it might be time for another Jamal Murray redemption.
Although it’s a very different context today, Murray has abruptly fallen one more time after his rapid rise. After making up the best duo in the NBA with Nikola Jokic, the Kitchener native failed to be the consistent and much-needed partner for the MVP to dodge elimination in the Conference Semifinals against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Thus, the Nuggets fell as one more victim to the champions curse, as the reigning champions haven’t managed to go beyond the second round since 2019. (The Toronto Raptors began this trend in the 2020 playoffs bubble after getting knocked out by the Boston Celtics in his run as defending champs.)
Murray had 35 points in Game 7 and some good performances that allowed the Nuggets to go up 3-2 after having been down 0-2. However, the bad ones ended up outweighing the brilliant ones and contributed to Denver’s elimination.
In the game during which he threw a heat pack at a referee, he had eight points going 3-of-18 from the field. Still, the defining moment was Game 6, with a truly unexpected underachieving performance. He just had 10 points going 4-of-18 from the field, and the Timberwolves survive to force a dramatic Game 7 in Denver.
The ecstasy of his games in the first round against the Lakers, including an impressive buzzer-beater over Anthony Davis in Game 2, was gone. Memories are ephemeral in the NBA.
At least there was an exciting summer ahead for Murray to make up for it.
After not playing in the 2023 World Cup due to the exhaustion from the season, the 27-year-old faced the summer with the determination to help Canada have a forever-remembered Olympic journey in its return to the Olympics 24 years later.
But the fantasy of the Canadians to see a two-headed monster alongside Shai Gilgeous-Alexander wasn’t even close to reality. As against the swarming defence of the Timberwolves that featured now-teammate Nickeil Alexander-Walker, the 2023 NBA champion was overwhelmed by the discipline and passion of an inferior French national squad that played for its life. Canada missed the Kitchener native when the national team clamored for the star’s help, but the true Murray never showed up, finishing with seven points, going 3-of-13 from the field and 2-of-9 from downtown. The Nuggets point guard finished the Olympics with poor numbers, averaging 6 points, 3 rebounds and 3.8 assists in 20.5 minutes while shooting 41 percent from the field and 14 percent from deep.
He didn’t light up in the City of the Light when the lights were on. He wasn’t the partner in crime of Gilgeous-Alexander that he was supposed to be. He was supposed to become a member of the best backcourt in the world. His inability to do so was one of the reasons why Canada couldn’t earn its right to battle Team USA in what could have been an intense final between the two NBA giants.
Murray was dealing with a left calf strain and right elbow soreness during the playoffs, minor injuries that didn’t appear to be gone in the Olympics. While physical issues played their role, and besides learning how to strengthen his body, the point guard can take valuable teachings from this miserable stretch.
First, the emotional Kitchener native should ground himself. An NBA champion and mature star like him, the main support for the best player in the world, can’t afford to have overheated reactions like the one he had throwing an object at a referee. Second, and related to the first factor, the Canadians should find alternatives to impact the game and ways to create higher-quality shots when they are not going in.
In a quality that indicates greatness, Murray feeds off the criticism to prove himself, and he shows up with courage, taking the shots to knock down nay-sayers. But being that fearless can be a double-edged sword that hurts his team by piling up misses in clutch moments. Efficiency is also a requirement for greatness that the Canadian point guard has lacked in crunch time. Murray has always been lightning in a bottle, but he needs to be more when that bottle is empty.
One could argue the Nuggets star needed more time to adapt to the FIBA game after 10 years without competing on the international stage, and that he had to adapt to play next to ball-dominant handler SGA. However, the reality is Murray is used to playing off the ball in Denver with Jokic running the offence, and Jordi Fernandez and Canada strived to put him in the best position, even in his role off the bench.
Actually, this role off the bench allowed him to take the reins of the offence as a leader of the second unit. The team also set up plays for him to take mid-range shots in isolation situations and to make plays in zoom actions similar to those of the Nuggets, whom Fernandez coached as one of the assistant coaches of Malone from 2016-2022. But Murray never found a rhythm to translate his aggressiveness to scoring and failed to find another way to benefit the team beyond continuing to try tough shots.
Nevertheless, these last hard times shouldn’t endanger Murray’s extension with Denver. He is eligible to sign a four-year $208 million contract and to be the long-term dancing partner of Jokic. Things are down — but not that down.
Jamal Murray endured that loneliness that all athletes have to deal with while recovering from a serious injury in the gym, listening to nothing beyond the uncertainty about whether he would be himself again resounding in his mind. But back then not even h knew what he really was or was meant to be — an inspiring NBA champion. Now, he knows it, everybody knows it, even those who still doubt him. Defiant Murray feels the call of another redemption. This time, we know that he’s capable of doing it. After all, he’s done it before.
