Jamal Murray – Knee
One of the most promising, young stars of the NBA is Jamal Murray and he had been having a career-year before going down with a torn ACL in the final minute of the Nuggets game last night against the Golden State Warriors. This is such a brutal blow for not only Murray, but for the entire Nuggets organization because they had a really good chance to potentially make the NBA Finals this season.
Entering last night, the Nuggets had won 8 of their last 9 games and were one of the league’s hottest teams, but this injury to Murray will definitely take a mental toll on this team and they may not be able to recover from this. Jamal Murray means so much to the Denver Nuggets and he is their leader out there on the court, which is why they are going to struggle to fill the production he leaves behind.
While the Nuggets still have the MVP front-runner in Nikola Jokic, they are definitely going to face an uphill battle with trying to replace Jamal Murray for the remainder of the season and for the first-half of next season because of how great of a player he has grown and continues to grow into.
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In 48 games this season, Murray was averaging 21.2 points, 4.0 rebounds, 4.8 assists and was shooting 40.8% from three-point range. Last year in the NBA Bubble during the playoffs, Jamal Murray was arguably the best player in the league, leading the Nuggets in scoring and 50 points twice against the Utah Jazz in the first-round of the playoffs.
At this point in the season, with the playoffs being just about a month away, this injury is definitely going to affect the Nuggets’ championship odds this season and quite honestly, this may be an injury they will not be able to recover from.
If Murray had gone down at the beginning of the season, the Nuggets could have at least looked to sign or trade for another high-level talent, but now, there are very few free agents that could help them and the trade deadline has passed. This is a very tough blow for the Nuggets and their young star in Murray.
