Nuggets' Jamal Murray Talks Jokić MVP, NBA Playoffs, Calipari, More in B/R Interview

Selecting the 2023-24 NBA MVP may not be a simple choice for some voters.

But it is for Jamal Murray.

"I think everything speaks for itself," the Denver Nuggets guard told Bleacher Report when discussing teammate Nikola Jokić's MVP credentials. "No case is stronger than Nikola's. I think it's as plain and simple as that. We're the best team in the league, and each season his numbers get better and better. You can't say his numbers stink. And, yeah, we're the best team. We just won a championship.

"A lot of guys have great cases, I think there are a lot of great candidates. But no other case is bigger than Nikola's."

While Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Luka Dončić each made cases as well, it is starting to look like Jokić will make NBA history and join Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (six), Michael Jordan (five), Bill Russell (five), LeBron James (four), Wilt Chamberlain (four), Magic Johnson (three), Larry Bird (three) and Moses Malone (three) on the list of players to win the MVP three times.

The big man averaged 26.4 points, 12.4 rebounds, 9.0 assists and 1.4 steals per game while shooting 58.3 percent from the field and 35.9 percent from deep. He is in full control every time he has the ball with the ability to score on the blocks, run the offense from the elbow, extend his own game beyond the arc, find cutters and even handle the ball in transition.

Jokić was the primary reason Denver finished tied for the best record in the Western Conference, and his contributions were even more important this season because Murray dealt with various injuries to his hamstring, ankle, shin and knee on the way to 59 games and a minutes restriction at times.

Despite those health concerns, Murray finished with career-best marks in points per game (21.2), assists per game (6.5), field-goal percentage (48.1) and three-point percentage (42.5). Most importantly, he returned for the final five games of the season and is ramping up for the playoffs.

"I feel great," Murray said of his individual health. "The real stuff is coming."

The real race for the championship begins in the playoffs, but the Nuggets were in another race down the stretch of the regular season when he did return. They battled the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves for the Western Conference's No. 1 seed and ended up with the same record as OKC at 57-25.

While the Thunder ended up with the No. 1 seed because of tiebreakers, Denver finished ahead of the Timberwolves in large part because of a head-to-head win on Wednesday.

Murray acknowledged the No. 1 seed would have been "big," but the confidence he took from the win over Minnesota stood out given the overall stakes and circumstances.

"It was a good test because we knew they were going to come ready to play," he said. "And I was coming back from injury for a back-to-back. We played with a lot of young guys. It was just a great overall boost for the team knowing what we can do and what we're capable of and how quickly things can change in the game. It was really fun to see all those young guys gain that confidence playing against that caliber of a team."

Winning games like that as a reigning champion leads to opportunities off the court as well, and Murray partnered with Cheetos for its latest Other Hand campaign that highlights how plenty of people—including NBA superstars—need to use their non-dominant hand when things get messy from snacking.

For Murray, that meant struggling to do things such as high fives and even dribbling a basketball in his latest commercial.

"It's been good," he said of the partnership. "I get a lot of Cheetos I get to take to the gym with me. I just thought it was fun to do this because I love Cheetos. Who doesn't? And the campaign about using your other hand is fun because I like to use my left hand in a lot of different ways."

Murray has been starring with both hands on the court long before he suited up for the Nuggets.

He was a First-Team All-SEC selection during his one collegiate season at Kentucky in 2015-16 before he was the No. 7 overall pick of the 2016 NBA draft. He helped lead the Wildcats to SEC regular-season and tournament championships while playing for head coach John Calipari.

While some Kentucky fans surely don't love that Calipari left for another program in the conference in Arkansas, the guard had nothing but love for the coach who helped him accomplish his NBA dreams.

"He's been there for so long, he's changed so many people's lives, mine included," Murray said. "I trusted him with my career and my path, I made sacrifices and he made sacrifices to put me in different positions to succeed. Not just me, but everyone else.

"I see him for who he is as a person, and not just an X's and O's guy. I'm more happy for Arkansas that they got somebody who is going to help the kids as people a lot more than people give him credit for. Not just the championships and all that.

"Anybody can coach anywhere and make a team better, but I'm more excited for what he's done for the organization. The love he'll get when he plays at Kentucky and goes back there is going to be really fun to see."

Murray will always receive plenty of love when he goes back to Kentucky as well, and he would love to do so as a two-time champion if everything goes according to plan in the postseason.

And what a difference a year makes for his Nuggets, as it was fair to question their overall ceiling heading into the 2023 playoffs even if they were clearly one of the best teams. After all, they had never won an NBA championship in franchise history and just lost to the Golden State Warriors in the first round of the 2022 playoffs.

It was the fourth consecutive exit in the playoffs before the Finals for the core group that revolved around Jokić, and the closest the team came was when it lost the 2020 Western Conference Finals to the Los Angeles Lakers in the bubble.

"You bring the same energy, but it is a different mindset," Murray said of the difference between going into the playoffs with and without a ring. "When you don't have the chip, you're trying to prove something and attack everything. You're trying to silence the haters and doubters. There's so much motivation because you've lost before and now you're trying to win."

All Denver did in the face of those 2023 doubts was break out one of the best playoff runs in recent memory. It cruised past the Timberwolves in the first round, defeated a Phoenix Suns team with Kevin Durant and Devin Booker in the second round, and then earned some Western Conference finals revenge with a clean sweep of the Lakers.

A championship was all but a formality by the time the Nuggets defeated the Miami Heat in five games in the Finals.

Murray, who scored more than 30 points in three of the four wins over the Lakers, was unbelievable in the postseason and averaged 26.1 points, 7.1 assists, 5.7 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game.

But he knows that success means the Nuggets are going to get everyone's best shot as they attempt to repeat.

"When you win, it's like, 'okay, we're here,'" he said. "It sinks in a little bit more that you're the champ. And now you have to bring it every time. I think everybody as a unit now knows that we have to be even better than we were last year to repeat.

"Most of the time when you watch film and you're trying to learn, you're looking for a lot of the negative stuff. It's easier to learn from the negatives than the positives because the positives work and it's like, 'oh, they work so we can just do it again.' But trying to learn from the positives is a little different process because you have teams adjusting for that and trying all these different gameplans, and now they're the ones trying to be the hunter and play with a certain type of aggression."

Denver already has its ring as a hunter. Now, it is time to find out whether it can win one as the hunted.