NBA teams tell you what they believe by how they spend, and on whom they spend it. And by agreeing to terms with Jamal Murray on a four-year, $208 million maximum contract extension, the Denver Nuggets are telling us they believe their best chance of continuing to compete for NBA championships lies with the Canadian point guard flanking Nikola Jokić through the balance of his prime.
They’re also telling us that they believe Murray’s rocky last few months, marked by a disappointing postseason and a disastrous turn at the Olympics, and his relative lack of individual accolades — he’s the only player set to make more than $50 million a season on average without an All-NBA or even an All-Star selection — don’t matter nearly as much as the eight years of chemistry he’s built with the three-time Most Valuable Player. That’s important, because if the total dollar amount of the agreement didn’t raise eyebrows — 30% of the 2025-26 salary cap amid the post-new broadcast deal boom — the timing of it might.
Re-upping now eliminates the possibility of the 27-year-old Murray leaving in free agency next offseason — welcome news to Nuggets fans, surely, after watching 2023 title contributors Bruce Brown and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope exit on the unrestricted market over the past two summers. (It also removes yet another star-caliber talent from the 2025 free-agent class, which is shaping up to be something of a Yikes Festival.) It also secures his services beyond the end of Jokić’s current contract — the big fella’s deal runs through 2027-28, with a $62.8 million player option for that season — which ensures Denver will continue to have access to the sterling two-man game that has bedeviled defenses, and consistently produced top-10 offenses, for the better part of a decade.
In theory, securing that cornerstone seems like a no-brainer stomach-settler. In practice, though, there’s some slight cause for queasiness. Denver backed up the Brinks truck to extend Murray through the end of the 2028-29 season on the heels of a campaign in which he was limited by hamstring, ankle, shin and knee injuries to just 59 games — the fourth straight season in which he has made 65 or fewer appearances. (He also missed the entire 2021-22 season after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.)
It…