When the Denver Nuggets selected Jamal Murray with the seventh-overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, they knew they had a special talent on their hands.
Murray was a hot prospect out of the University of Kentucky, a guy known as a prolific scorer and a possible game-changer in the NBA, but they had plans for him that exceeded most other’s expectations. While the majority of analysts and teams saw Murray as a pure two guard, the Nuggets believed he could and would be just as much a one as he was a two.
Murray has expressed much of the same.
That said, he shouldn’t — at least not now. Murray is young, raw, and he’s still getting acclimated to the pace of professional play. Denver needs to allow Murray to get comfortable doing what he does best (score) before they start placing other responsibilities and pressures on his shoulders.
The Nuggets are stacked with talent at the guard position, and with guys like Emmanuel Mudiay and Gary Harris locked in at the starting positions, head coach Michael Malone will have the flexibility to place Murray in situations where he can succeed.
Throwing him in as the on-ball point guard, even if it’s only in limited minutes, is not going to help him and the Nuggets learn how to use his abilities best.
Likewise, the more minutes Murray can play alongside Mudiay at the two, the better. Mudiay is heading into his sophomore season and expectations are sky high. Spacing the floor around him with a lethal sharpshooter like Murray is only going to make him better.
Last year, when Mudiay was thrown into the fire to start the season, we saw him struggle; the Nuggets, though, are now in position where they can smooth that learning curve for Murray, allowing him to settle into his game at an easier pace.
Murray should come into the season with the plan of mastering the ability of off-ball scorer. If he’s ever going to develop into a point guard, or even just a legitimate combo guard, he should do that next offseason or the one after that.
