the Jamal of it all

plus final training camp thoughts as preseason begins

Photo by Ryan Tasto on Unsplash

Training camp wrapped on Thursday for Denver in San Diego; Friday was just a walk-through before Saturday’s preseason game against Minnesota. And that’s it. Camp’s over. ¹

Preseason and training camp are boundless in their optimism. Everything’s great, everyone’s in the best shape of their lives, chemistry is coming together, blah, blah, blah.

That’s why disruptions of that optimism are so worrisome. If things can’t be good in training camp, your odds of having a great year are low.

That was not a problem for this year’s Nuggets. David Adelman had no complaints about the effort or focus in any of their three days at UC San Diego. The players have all had nothing but good things to say about the way everyone is locked in.

Aaron Gordon commented that the Nuggets feel more like a team this year.

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Media gets glimpses, that’s all. We come in after practice is over when players are just shooting around. We caught the last three minutes of the Nuggets’ scrimmage.

So instead, what you’re trying to do is piece together observations that are consistent across situations. Things coaches and players say more than once, in line with things you notice.

And the biggest thing I noticed was Jamal Murray.

Murray has been more engaged than I remember seeing him. Talking with coaches after practice, guiding teammates during scrimmages, setting a high level of performance on both ends of the floor². This is after organizing the LA workouts and providing more feedback.

It’s not that this is all new. Murray’s done these things before. I’ve seen Murray guide young players on and off the court. I’ve seen him give effort defensively.

He would assuredly point out that none of this is a change or big deal. It also doesn’t have to be some monster change, but an evolution.

So much is made of Murray as the No.2 to Jokic.

He’s been the playoff monster and the guy who hasn’t made an All-Star team.

He’s been the Bubble Killer, the guy who went for 30 per game on 50-40-90 in the Western Conference Finals, the guy who was largely limited in the Lakers and Wolves series in 2024, and then struggled in the Olympics, the guy who averaged a career high in steals last year and the guy who had defensive struggles on switches, the guy who started off horribly last season and then might have had his best regular season stretch of games in January through March.

We get caught up trying to force comparisons. And the idea has consistently been that Murray is supposed to be Dame, or a Target-brand Steph, or even a Devin-Booker-type in terms of scoring explosiveness.

The reality is that Murray has been playing winning basketball for eight seasons. It is both unfair to pin all of his evolution as a winning player to Jokic and dishonest to separate it from the Big Fella.

Maybe in another situation, he would have looked more like Dame. Maybe he would have slid into the mid-tier All-Star-fringe guards where he is now, maybe he would have been worse.

But Murray hasn’t had free rein to do whatever, to find every nook and cranny of his game. He’s had to find ways to be great next to Jokic, which is both easy because of how Jokic plays and hard because it means a release of control.

Over the past two seasons, Murray’s playmaking has seriously evolved, and this is the comp I’ve been thinking about more and more with him:

I chose Parker’s 05 season because that’s when the team really started shifting from Tim Duncan’s to Manu and Tony’s on the offensive side. I went 2019 for Jamal because that’s the first year they made the playoffs.

The fact that these two are about dead even in scoring per 100 possessions, with Parker higher in assists (but Murray playing next to Jokic) and Murray lower on turnovers and higher in efficiency (in a much-higher efficiency era) is really interesting.

Parker, like Murray, had times when he played as the best player on the floor in big moments. Parker, like Murray, played with an all-time Great who was always the “best player” on the floor. Parker, like Murray, had times when he had to take a step back to be more of a floor general, and times when he had to set the tone.

Try and keep in mind that Damian Lillard scored a bazzillion more points and got more attention, and won at a fraction of what Parker did. Now, Dame on those Spurs teams would have been awesome. But these things are not simple addition. It’s about fit and role.

Murray’s evolution as a playmaker over the past two seasons, the way he’s making room for others, and the way he’s leading this preseason all indicate a different identity than what has always been the standard.

Instead of being a 30-per-game scorer, Murray’s evolving into a floor general, who can also light up a team for 30 on any given night. ³

Yes, more threes would help the offense and his scoring output in particular. No, he’s not a great defender in certain spots.⁴

But he plays winning basketball, and this may be the year where that evolution takes another step forward. Instead of thinking of Murray as Dame, Steph, or even De’Aaron Fox or Donovan Mitchell, think of him evolving towards being closer to Parker, Mike Conley, Derrick White.

If Jokic is the sun in the Nuggets’ solar system, Murray is the moon that moves the tides. You need both for the best ecosystem.

And that version of Jamal Murray won’t make an All-Star team, but he will help Denver be an absolute juggernaut this season.

More thoughts on the rest of training camp after the jump…