Denver Nuggets’ Jamal Murray Fast Becoming Canada’s Next Superstar

Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray is on his way to becoming the next Canadian-born superstar.

Steve Nash is the gold standard when it comes to Canadian-born basketball superstars. And, although it’s premature to compare him to the two-time NBA MVP, Murray is on the right trajectory.

Nash was at his height in his early 30s. Murray is only 23 and in his fourth NBA season. Murray is showing signs of being a better scorer than Nash, but not as gifted a playmaker.

But when you looking at scoring only, Nash’s best season was in 2006, he averaged 18.8 points a game. This year, Murray averaged 18.5.

In the playoffs, Murray is even better, though it’s tough to compare because Nash had 12 playoff seasons to only two for Murray. But Nash averaged 17.3 points a game over his playoff career, while Murray is averaging 24.2 points.

“The young man is growing up and turning into a superstar on the biggest stage,” Denver coach Mike Malone said.

After showing occasional flashes of brilliance over his four-year career, Murray has taken his game, and his profile, to another level this postseason.

At 6’ 4”, he’s got a little Steph Curry in his game, maybe a little Allen Iverson too, but he’s an inch taller than Curry and four inches taller than Iverson, which should make him more of a threat as he matures.

“Jamal embraces the moment,” Malone said. “He’s not afraid of it. Some people run away from this moments. He looks for them.”

Per Elias Sports, Murray is the second person after Michael Jordan to follow a 50-point performance in the playoffs with a 40-point game, and the Nuggets are the first team ever to come back from down 3-1 and win in two separate series.

Murray scored 50, 42 and 50 points in consecutive games against the Utah Jazz, and then he poured in 40 points to lead Denver to an upset of the Los Angeles Clippers and a spot in the Western Conference Finals.

The Canadian media love a good story, and they love this one. In a conference call on Thursday, the line of questioning took on an obvious theme: His roots in Canada and, in particular, Kitchener, Ontario, where he was born, and his impact on the country’s ever-growing basketball climate.

Murray said all the right things about wanting to be a role model in Canada and he came across as humbled by his journey. It’s clear that he’s going to be a great ambassador for basketball in Canada. He’s got just enough swagger to make him easy to embrace, but not so much that it puts people off.

One reporter, referencing Vince Carter, talked about how Vinsanity has been replaced by Murray Mania. On Twitter, he was referred to as “The King of the North.”

Well, it’s not really mania. Yet.

For one thing, the world is still waiting to see how he does against LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, with Game 1 on Friday. But he’s been attracting plenty of attention for what he did against Kawhi’s Los Angeles Clippers in the Western Conference semifinals.

Murray has burst into the limelight so quickly that Canada is still catching up with the fact that this country has a superstar in our midst, along with soccer phenom Alphonso Davies. But with the Raptors out of the playoffs, you can bet the eyes of the country will start turning to Murray now.

And this kid is only 23.

We’ve been down this route before with Vince Carter, who helped turn Canada into a basketball nation. And who can forget Nash and all he did for the game in Canada? Then Kawhi Leonard turned into a demigod up here by taking the Raptors to the NBA Championship last year.

But Murray and Nash, who recently was appointed head coach of the Brooklyn Nets, have that homegrown status that is special. This country loves to rally around its stars because a true supernova doesn’t arrive here very often.

Murray was born in Kitchener, Ontario, an hour’s drive west of Toronto. He is the son of Sylvia and Roger Murray. They moved from Jamaica to Canada when Jamal was 9. He has a younger brother, Lamar.

His athletic interests and abilities come from his father, who ran track and played basketball. At 3, he was playing basketball for hours.

As he grew up and got better, his father put him through drills and mental training. He did pushups in the snow, and there were blindfolded shooting sessions in the gym. To this day, Jamal says he owes his coolness under pressure to the practice of meditation.

He attended high school in Kitchener, but transferred to a prep school in Orangeville, an hour north of Toronto. In 2015, Murray committed to Kentucky to play for coach John Calipari. After averaging 20 points in his freshman year, Murray declared for the NBA draft.

The Nuggets selected Murray with the seventh overall pick in 2016, and he averaged 9.9 points in his rookie year and was named to the NBA’s All-Rookie Second Team.

In his next season, 2017-18, Murray averaged 16.7 points. In 2018-19, he averaged 18.2 points a game. And this season, Murray got even better, averaging 18.5 points a game.

His coming out party was this postseason.

Yet the moment doesn’t seem to overwhelm Murray. “It’s cool to turn some heads,” he told media on a conference call.

But there’s plenty of raw emotion in him. You can feel it when he talks about the ongoing fight against racial injustice. But he also has a fire burning inside him to prove his doubters wrong.

“Coming from Canada, I’ve always had people doubt me or doubt my ability,” Murray said.

But that’s when Murray pulled himself back, as if he was all too aware that his journey is far from over.

“We’re just going to keep letting our game talk,” he said.