RealGM

Team-building is a controlled burn. It’s too expensive and too restrictive to pay everyone; you have to decide whom you can lose. Until recently the Denver Nuggets have been immune to these stresses, even as they’ve shed key rotation pieces. After all, they have Nikola Jokic—they don’t really need much else. His greatness is a walled garden. Now, though, with Jamal Murray up for a max extension and playing the worst basketball of his life, the Nuggets are faced with the kind of truly tough decision that they’ve previously been able to avoid. 

Despite his well-earned rep as a player with a knack for big games, Murray has looked awfully suspect in his last 15 big games. During this year’s playoffs, Murray was just plain bad, scratching together a meager 47.4 percent True Shooting mark (both the worst of his postseason career) as Denver failed to defend their title. At the Olympics, he was even worse. In a tournament full of obscure guys you’ve never heard of who play for teams you can’t pronounce, Murray was arguably the most harmful player on any team. Across four games, he averaged six points per game and made 29 percent of his shots. 

In Paris, worse than the fact that he was missing shots, Murray inspired no confidence that he could make them. Unable to find his sea legs as Canada’s sixth man, Murray played meek, swaggerless ball. Gone was the bravura shot-maker who helped lead Denver to a title: that guy was unrecognizable. His jumper was scattershot and his first step leaden; he dribbled the ball like he was playing at recess after it rained and he didn’t want to get his clothes all dirty. By the time Canada got bounced by France in the quarterfinals, Murray left the Olympics with a grand total of 24 points, a far cry from the player who scored 23 in one quarter against the Lakers in last year’s playoffs.  

As such, Murray’s status in Denver has been thrown into limbo for the first time. A free agent after next season, Murray was close to signing a four-year, $209 million extension earlier in the offseason, but those talks have apparently—and understandably—stalled. 

While extending Murray would’ve been a no-brainer five months ago, the prospect of maxing him now seems freighted with risk. Injury-prone zero-time All-Stars don’t usually command big contracts. To wit, his run of lousy form has cast a pall over his prior accomplishments. As long as Murray was a killer in big moments, his so-so regular season output felt like a personal choice. It was almost charming, even, how he bided his time until it was time to unleash the beast. After these last few months, though, Murray’s mystique has been punctured. What if the reason Murray puts up Anfernee Simons-level stats is because he’s an Anfernee Simons-level player? 

Still, while maxing Murray could be foolish, losing him would be disastrous. Crucially, Murray elevates the Nuggets from a good team to an elite one. Over their seven seasons together, Murray and Jokic have grown into the NBA’s greatest jam band. More than any other player, Murray has discovered how to harness Jokic’s unique genius. In the two-man game, they trade glances and impromptu feints until they pry open the defense. This is what makes Murray essentially irreplaceable: he emboldens the world’s best player to play at his best. 

This is also what makes Murray somewhat limited. Years of playing with Jokic have encouraged a degree of learned helplessness. Mirroring his Olympics, when Murray was on the court without Jokic last season, he scored 3.42 fewer points per 100 possessions and his True Shooting fell by nearly 10 percentage points, per PBP Stats. Similarly, Minnesota bottled up Murray by playing Denver straight up, trusting that they could guard Jokic and Murray one-on-one without sending help. 

In this sense, Murray has made the unfortunate transition from a system breaker to a system player. At his best, Murray gave Denver’s offense a counterweight to Jokic’s post play. His dynamic, rubbery ball handling and punchy scoring allowed him to access shots that Jokic couldn't. He was an unpredictable and versatile scorer; he broke Denver out of their patterns. 

The current iteration of Murray is none of those things, having grown so reliant on Jokic that he can’t thrive without him. Matched up against less talented defenders in Paris, Murray often tried to rifle through his bag, only to realize he forgot to pack anything. Since isolations and spot-ups each comprise less than 10 percent of his shot diet in Denver, he seemed unsteady doing so in Canada’s iso-heavy attack. Worse, he looked slow, the cumulative effect of years of knee injuries. 

Warts and all, Murray is a good player (bad players don’t chip in 21.2 points and 6.5 assists per game for a contender), but no longer a good kind of player. Whereas he once complemented Jokic, he’s now wholly dependent on him; he’s jerry-rigged his game around Jokic such that he can’t stand on his own. Murray remains productive, provided he’s within Jokic’s orbit. 

No matter how Denver hems and haws over Murray’s extension, a divorce makes no sense: Murray will never find a situation as good as Denver and Denver will never find a replacement as good as Murray. Their marriage will continue, for better and for worse. For $209 million richer and for poorer.