Strike 2: Is Jamal Murray an “All-World” basketball player?
We’ll find out in a few months.
Murray is off to a terrific start to his 10th NBA season (he missed one due to a knee injury), especially when compared with previous years. He’s averaging better than 22 points and six assists per game, while adding better than five rebounds per. While the Nuggets 10-3 start has been a total team effort, predictably led by Nikola Jokic, Murray has played a big part, and with the injury to Christian Braun, his impact will need to be even greater between now and the time the NBA announces its All-Star game rosters early next year.
That’s when we’ll find out if Murray is “All-World” or not in the eyes of the rest of the NBA.
The new All-Star game format to be unveiled in February will feature three different teams of eight players each, with one squad made up entirely of international, foreign born players. They’ll play a round-robin mini-tournament and crown a champion. Unless something really funky happens, the international team figures to roll past the two American squads. We already know that if all are healthy, Joker, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Victor Wembanyama will be five of the eight (Wemby is currently hurt.) Those five currently have the best odds of winning this season’s NBA MVP.
But who will be the other three foreign born All-Stars?
Early projections have Murray needing to beat out guys like Josh Giddey, Pascal Siakam and Alperen Sengun to make the squad. Even though the selections are supposed to be made “regardless of position,” it would seem to be common sense that if Murray can outperform Giddy – and both put up big numbers when they faced off Monday night – who’s the only guard among those three, Murray could be part of that Great Eight. He should be.
Just imagine a front court of Joker, Wemby, Giannis and Sengun along with a backcourt of Luka, Shai and Murray.
Zero chance either of the two eight-man American squads are defeating that group.
The new format is an exciting and positive step towards revitalizing the NBA All-Star weekend. There could and should be some actual competitive fire re-introduced to the games. Playing for your country always brings out the best in professional athletes. That’s something a few extra prize dollars have never been able to do.
It could be – and hopefully will be – made even better in future seasons when a full fledged 12-man American team tips it off against a full 12-man roster of international players in a regulation contest. That’s when (a healthy) Jamal Murray will be a shoo-in to collect the one honor that’s evaded him to this point in his career. A full 48-minute game like that would be must-see-TV, along the lines of similar international competitions like the World Baseball Classic, the Ryder Cup and last year’s Four Nations Hockey tournament.
Murray or not, who will Denver Nugget fans be cheering for this time around?
It’s unlikely we’ll hear a lot of “U-S-A” chants around the Rocky Mountain region that weekend.
