The Black Curtain: Denver's Injury Opacity

This shouldn't be this complicated

On Friday, the Nuggets played the Clippers. It was a weird game. We talked about how weird it was on Locked on Nuggets, but this is not about that. Jamal Murray played pretty well, at least for this season’s standards, with 20 points, five rebounds, and four steals.¹

As Murray was wrapping up postgame comments, I asked about his hamstring, which had been sore and had left him questionable until gametime.² Murray answered, talked about it feeling pretty good. Then he casually dropped that he’d been dealing with plantar fasciiitis before saying everyone’s dealing with something. Here’s Murray’s quote. (Transcription by Bennett Durando of the Post.)

“I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel going into the game. I didn’t know how many minutes I was going to play. I just kind of went out there and said, ‘I’m gonna give it what I’ve got.’ Fresh legs. Had energy. Feel good now. Some plantar fasciitis. Everybody’s going through something. But I’m good, man. Excited to be back.”

That was the last question of the presser, so Murray walked off the podium.

“Did he just…?”

“I think so, yeah?”

“I’m not crazy, he just said…”

“Yeah.”

So apparently, Murray has been dealing with plantar fasciitis³, which is not an insignificant deal. You literally need to stay off it in order for it to heal; that’s the only way. It would explain a lot: the inconsistency night-to-night, the lack of explosiveness, the overall discomfort of his game.

Murray’s injury status would also reframe how fans and media have criticized Murray. If a player plays, then you judge how he performs on the court. That’s the deal, that’s what the money is for.

But plantar fasciitis provides another layer of context that’s important. I can’t give the guy the full benefit of the doubt if I don’t know that he’s dealing with an extremely painful foot condition and trying to play through it.

The bigger problem is that this didn’t happen suddenly, even if the condition is more recent, yet no one knew. We found out when Murray just casually mentioned it at the end of a presser. It was never on any injury report. It was not disclosed. Just “Oh yeah, I’ve got this. Anyway, have a good night, guys.”

But should we have known?

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