No other team has dominated the league like the Nuggets in the last few years. While a lot of the credit goes to Nikola Jokic for establishing the Denver Nuggets in the league, Jamal Murray has been a key architect under the radar—no better time to say this than now. In the recently concluded first-round playoffs, Murray kicked out the Lakers in Game 5 with a floating mid-range shot over Austin Reaves and Anthony Davis. After winning the series, the Nuggets point guard has been a major part in the basketball discussions as someone who is eyeing a spot on the all-time list.
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Recently, the ‘KG Certified’ shared an old clip of Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett talking about Murray. The original clip was recorded around the 2023 NBA Finals. At the time, Pierce tweeted,
“Jamal Murray is the best point guard in the league”, and later reiterated his take on the show.
The Celtics legend believed that the 27-year-old could give the likes of Stephen Curry and Luka Doncic a run for their money. While Pierce sounded convinced about his take, KG felt the need to disagree because he believed several active point guards would rank higher on the list than Murray, “Best point guard in the league? With Kyrie and Luka and Ja? Nah.”
Pierce’s response to the rebuttal was that Murray could score, assist, and play defense just like the rest of them. However, KG wasn’t impressed and even though he gave his flowers to the Nuggets star, he believed Murray is not on the same level as other PGs.
He said, “Nah, I’m not going to say that. It’s probably about four…It’s about four-point guards I’d take in front of him.” KG’s assessment of Murray is on point because the players, who were mentioned, like Luka, Steph, and Ja Morant are the best players on their teams. None of them have the privilege to play alongside someone like Nikola Jokic who makes it incredibly easy for Murray to score by drawing more defense towards him.
He also makes the assists go high for Murray because of his scoring abilities. Regardless, Murray has emerged as one of the best players in the last few years and for that reason, he deserves his flowers. But ranking him on top of Chef Curry and Magic Luka? That could be far-fetched.
Where would Jamal Murray rank among the current lot of PGs?
It’d be unfair to assess Murray’s standing on the all-time greatest PG list because it comprises some of the biggest names in the league like Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas. However, he can give a fair challenge to the likes of Jalen Brunson, Tyrese Maxey, Luka, and Ja. All of these fall in about the same age bracket and have shown tremendous growth in their role as a point guard. At the beginning of the 2022-23 season, Josh Cohen compiled a list for NBA.com of Top 10 point guards for the season.
Unfortunately, Murray wasn’t featured on the list, however, he averaged 26.1 points, 5.7 rebounds, 7.1 assists, and 1.5 steals, per game in the postseason. He also became an NBA Champion for the first time, but somehow, towards the end of 2022, he wasn’t seen as a top 10 PG.
Some of the players who were on the list were Luka, Steph, Ja Morant, Trae Young, Kyrie Irving, Damian Lillard, James Harden, etc. It’s interesting how within a few months of the list being published, Murray became “the best” PG in the league for Paul Pierce but even a year later, fans are not willing to give him a spot in the top five. Do you think he is the best PG in the NBA currently?
