Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokic, and Gary Harris are part of a fascinating story. Their places in the story are viewed in different ways.
Most of the teams in the Western Conference made significant changes to their roster in an effort to make a run at a NBA championship in 2020. The Denver Nuggets were not one of those teams.
Having finished the 2018-19 regular season as the No. 2 seed in the West, the Nuggets elected to pour money into securing their future.
For multiple years, Nikola Jokic and Gary Harris had been hailed as major building blocks in Denver, but one team exec says that point guard Jamal Murray is just as important to the team's future success (via Keith P. Smith of “RealGM Analysis”):
“We see him as being just as important as Nikola Jokic and Gary Harris. Very few guys have had the impact as a shooter and scorer that Jamal has had at such a young age.”
Indeed, the Nuggets rewarded Murray's tremendous improvements in his third season with a five-year, $170 million extension just one year after they locked up Jokic for the foreseeable future.
Denver drafted Murray with the No. 7 overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft. After making a big leap in his sophomore season, Murray established himself as one of the better offensive point guards in the league last year.
The former Kentucky Wildcat averaged career highs in points (18.2), assists (4.8) and rebounds (4.2) while shooting close to 37 percent from beyond the arc.
Murray elevated his level of production in the playoffs, averaging 21.3 points per game and shooting over 90 percent from the free-throw line.
The Nuggets have the offensive depth and firepower to match up with any other team in the West. If Murray can make significant gains on the defensive side of the ball, they could be one of the more well-rounded teams in the league.
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