Ultimately, Jamal Murray received his cash, and everybody across the Canadian males’s basketball program might breathe an enormous sigh of aid.
The Denver Nuggets star closed the door on a difficult few months over the weekend when a number of studies surfaced that he had signed a four-year contract extension price $208 million U.S.
The deal will kick in for the 2025-26 season and hold the 27-year-old beneath contract to the Nuggets by means of the 2028-29 season. That ought to give the Nuggets not less than 4 extra years of Murray sharing the ground with franchise cornerstone Nikola Jokic, offering loads of runway for the elegant two-man recreation that helped Denver win the 2022-23 NBA championship to gun for an additional title.
As an apart, it makes Murray’s the highest-paid athlete in Canadian historical past, bringing his whole assured earnings to $344.5 million. Given he’ll solely be 32 when he’s eligible to be a free agent, there’s a very good likelihood he’ll be capable to add to that.
It’s good final result for each Murray and for Mike George, his longtime agent who has been in Murray’s nook because the dynamic capturing guard was turning heads with CIA Bounce and Orangeville Prep.
It’s additionally an excellent time to be an NBA star, as league revenues proceed to drive participant salaries up with seemingly no finish in sight. Steve Nash gained two MVPs and performed 18 seasons however needed to get by on $144.6 million when he retired in 2014, two years earlier than Murray was drafted seventh general out of the College of Kentucky.
Extra relevantly it signifies that Murray and the Nuggets can focus their full consideration on staying on high of what guarantees to be a vastly aggressive race to emerge from the Western Convention, the place among the rivals — the Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder, Minnesota Timberwolves, Dallas Mavericks and even the up-and-coming Houston Rockets — characteristic key members of Crew Canada, in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Nickeil Walker-Alexander, Dwight Powell and Dillon Brooks, respectively.
That mission received clouded just a little bit this summer season as Murray, enjoying for the senior males’s crew for the primary time since 2015, struggled mightily whereas in a Canadian uniform and whose efficiency — pretty or not — was a straightforward place to level a finger when Canada misplaced to France within the Olympic quarterfinals, falling in need of what everybody concerned hoped could be medal-winning summer season.
Poor performances in small pattern sizes occur on a regular basis, however they get amplified on a stage just like the Summer time Olympics. In that context Murray capturing 2-for-14 from three over 4 video games or 9-of-31 general — and never enjoying any higher within the exhibition video games Canada had within the event build-up — had been actually surprising numbers.
The prospect of Murray lastly taking the ground for Canada was so tantalizing as a result of he’s the type of participant who has so usually raised his recreation when the stakes are highest, as his profession playoff scoring common previous to this 12 months of 25 factors per recreation on glowing effectivity would attest.
However as a substitute Murray regarded a step gradual, and even hesitant at occasions enjoying for Canada. Was he damage? Missing recreation health? Was he disenchanted in having to return off the bench or uncomfortable not having the ball in his arms whereas enjoying alongside Gilgeous-Alexander?
There have been whispers that touched on the entire above coming from all corners; the usual type of venting that occurs when groups fall quick.
However Murray’s downside was that the Olympics weren’t an aberration. His sub-par efficiency this summer season got here on the heels of a daily season interrupted by nagging accidents and a poor playoff displaying — Murray averaged simply 20.6 factors a recreation on 40.2 per cent capturing as Denver was eradicated within the second-round by Minnesota, including gas to a story that was already simmering.
By the point the Olympics had been over, Murray hadn’t had only a poor event, he had been enjoying miles beneath his requirements for months.
And he nonetheless didn’t have a contract extension.
Again in Denver, there was a rising refrain of Nuggets devoted who didn’t need Denver to supply him one, rapidly forgetting what Murray had accomplished to assist convey a title to the Mile Excessive Metropolis.
Mark Kiszla, a outstanding columnist with the Denver Gazette, made Murray’s contract the main focus of his protection of Canada’s loss for France, saying: “There’s no method a bust on the Olympics is price a max contract within the NBA.”
The web commentary was worse.
Ultimately, calmer heads prevailed. Murray received his deal, as was hinted at when Nuggets president Josh Kroenke got here out in help of his embattled star a few weeks in the past:
“Jamal’s an excellent participant, probably the greatest within the NBA,” Kroenke informed the Denver Put up. “He felt the Olympics had been for him. Simply studying a few of his quotes, I do know he was annoyed just a little bit. So I’ve little question that he’ll use that the fitting method for motivation going into the season.”
He additionally implied that accidents had been a difficulty for Murray within the playoffs and thru the summer season:
“Whenever you’re going in opposition to the most effective on the planet, whether or not it’s within the NBA playoffs or within the Olympics, you’re gonna get an opponent’s finest shot. And for those who’re not 100 per cent and you already know you wish to be on the market nonetheless, you’re gonna attempt to struggle by means of it like Jamal is. However I do know he wasn’t 100 per cent. I do know getting him again there’s a large step towards seeing the Jamal who was throwing up triple-doubles within the NBA Finals.”
From a Canada Basketball perspective, the potential of Murray getting lower than the contract he hoped for was important.
One of many promoting factors that has helped carry this system within the eyes of Canada’s high male gamers lately is that, along with the honour of enjoying on your nation on one of many recreation’s largest phases, is the notion that enjoying worldwide basketball can improve their skilled careers.
It’s been true all the best way again to Nash’s halcyon days with this system, as he credited his worldwide expertise with serving to his transition to the NBA as a younger participant and his transition to stardom later in his profession.
Brooks, for instance, rode his red-hot summer season serving to lead Canada to the bronze medal on the FIBA World Cup of Basketball in 2023 to a strong bounce again marketing campaign with Houston after a depressing end to the 2022-23 season with Memphis; Alexander-Walker had an identical flow-through impact with the Timberwolves. Andrew Nembhard was desirous to have the platform Canada offered this summer season to construct on his playoff breakout with the Indiana Pacers. For Gilgeous-Alexander, being the go-to participant in excessive stakes video games was the one piece of his résumé that also wanted sprucing after rebuilding years with Oklahoma Metropolis, and enjoying for Canada helped in that regard.
Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t develop into an MVP candidate as a result of he performed for Canada, however the expertise didn’t damage.
So the chance that Murray’s efficiency for Canada — and whereas enjoying in an unfamiliar function as a secondary ball-handling coming off the bench — could be used in opposition to him in contract negotiations was a state of affairs this system merely didn’t need or want, not solely as a result of everybody concerned desires the most effective for a outstanding Canadian participant, but additionally as a result of it might conceivably be the type of cautionary story that might create obstacles sooner or later.
Happily, the worst case has been properly prevented.
Murray is being rewarded for his confirmed observe report of efficiency on the highest ranges, with the Nuggets betting that at age 27 and coming into his ninth season, his finest basketball continues to be forward of him.
For Canada it signifies that any frustrations over a summer season that fell in need of everybody’s targets have room to breathe and be smoothed over, and the notion that enjoying for Canada in any method damage Murray’s worth will be put to relaxation.
The 2028 Olympics are lower than 4 years away, in spite of everything.