DENVER — When Jamal Murray stepped onto the court two weeks ago against Oklahoma City in the Nuggets’ preseason opener, it wasn’t long before traces of the old Murray reappeared.
The first two shots he took, both misses, elicited a palpable buzz from a crowd eager to see the Murray they came to adore prior to him tearing his ACL in April 2021.
On the third try, Murray buried a corner 3-pointer as a smile stole across his face. Then, in the final seconds of the first half, Murray sprinted the length of the court, briefly catching the spirit of the same scorer who torched opponents in the NBA Bubble during the pandemic. When he got near the elbow, swerved and launched off his surgically-repaired knee, his buzzer-beater shed months of doubt and unearthed the steely confidence that’s long defined Murray’s game.
For the first time since the injury, he was back in the spotlight, beckoning the crowd to get louder.
“Yeah, we’re back,” he said. “That was checking off boxes. … That was me two years ago, which is obviously I’m still me, but that was the mentality I was in. I’m back. Everybody knows I’m going to go get this bucket, and everybody has the belief that I’m going to go get this bucket.”
Murray has dreamed about his return “since the first day I got hurt.” He’s wondered what his first bucket will feel like and how the crowd will receive him. On Wednesday night at Utah, after a year-and-a-half-long journey that tested his stubborn nerves, he’ll get his reward.
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In the raw aftermath of Murray’s ACL tear, after he’d grappled with the magnitude of the injury and wondered aloud if the Nuggets planned to trade him, he started plotting his return.
Shortly after his left knee buckled in San Francisco on April 12, 2021, Murray began calculating a target date.
“When I got hurt, I was like, ‘OK, I know the time frame, playoffs, I’m gonna come around at the playoffs (in 2022),’ ” he told The Denver Post. “So I was already, from the moment I got hurt, I was already planning how I’m going to come back. I dreamt about it. I envisioned myself playing.”
Murray tried desperately to realize that goal. He conducted rigorous pre-game workouts prior to playoff games, and, behind the scenes, he played 5-on-5 against team staffers and bench players, including Vlatko Cancar, Markus Howard and Facu Campazzo.
“It would go in waves,” a league source said. “He would not really try to do too much and then he’d score eight, 10 points from a spot. You saw the skill, but all the quick movements and quick-twitch-type things that’s needed to guard guys like Steph (Curry), he wasn’t there with that yet.”
The benchmarks Murray looked for of himself weren’t there, either.
There was hesitation in his game, more so on defense than offense, and the last thing Murray wanted to do was return, in the crucible of the postseason, and freeze. In those private games, Murray was “coasting,” able to rely on his offensive skill enough to be competitive, but still reluctant to commit on defense.
“I couldn’t stay with people,” he said.
When Murray found himself in the paint, grappling for a rebound was an afterthought.
“I wouldn’t even jump,” he said.
When a screen came, he’d pause to re-route his direction, while simultaneously taking contact. All of it was uncomfortable and involved too much uncertainty.
“I’m like, ‘Man, I gotta think, and obviously I can’t go guard Steph like that,' ” he said.
Murray knew Klay Thompson’s opinion. He’d read Thompson’s comments in The Post during Denver’s first-round playoff series, urging him not to “put your whole future at risk,” which was a message that’d been amplified dozens of times around him.
“(Klay) told me the same thing: ‘You’re gonna want to play, you’re gonna have that urge, people are gonna want you back, but you just gotta make sure you know where you’re at at that point,’ ” Murray said.
“… I went to my dad and I told him, ‘I want to play,’ but I couldn’t do it yet.”
Murray said he almost forced a premature return, further jeopardizing what’s already proven to be a fragile championship window for Denver. His dad, Roger Murray, and former Nuggets president Tim Connelly intervened.
“‘We’re just gonna shut it down, let you recover the way you should and just take the pressure off,’” they told him.
The pressure bubbled over when Murray, unable to prove how hard he was working in the gym, tweeted: “Y’all don’t think I want to be out there huh … crazy.”
Murray’s missive came in the wake of Game 2 when the gap between the Warriors and Nuggets stretched both sides of the San Francisco Bay. The noise had gotten to him.
“People are like, ‘Oh, I thought he was mentally strong,’ ” Murray said. “It’s not about that. I’m doing everything in my power to come back, it’s just, time needs time.”
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When the season ended, Murray took what he needed. For two or three weeks, he detached. He stayed to himself, barely working out, slowly decompressing from the stress of his non-return.
He returned home to Kitchener, Ontario, where he spent quality time with family before he began plotting and calculating … again. With a few months before training camp, this time, Murray’s return was non-negotiable.
After the brief respite, Murray bounced between Denver and Phoenix, where he had specific trainers cater to his rehab. In Toronto, where he worked out with Team Canada, he had someone there, too.
During one stop in Denver, general manager Calvin Booth made it a priority to check in with Murray. Over dinner, the two talked about the shared opportunity ahead of them — the one Booth has in his first season running a championship contender, and the one Murray has in reminding everybody who he is.
In Booth’s estimation, given what the last 18 months have looked like for him, Murray has a different mentality heading into this season.
“Jamal’s much more prepared and he’s played a lot more this summer than in years past,” Booth said.
In early July, Murray played some pick-up with the Nuggets when the team was in Las Vegas for Summer League. He also filmed a New Balance commercial with fellow reps Zach LaVine, Kawhi Leonard and Dejounte Murray. LaVine, who tore his ACL in 2017, has made two consecutive All-Star teams. Last season, despite tearing his ACL in 2018, Dejounte Murray made his first. Leonard is part of the ignominious club, too. The five-time All-Star is returning this season from a partially torn ACL.
While in Las Vegas, the Nuggets’ guard said he peppered LaVine and Murray with questions about their own returns.
“Any time you get outside of basketball, you’re able to relate with people on a personal level, it’s really fun,” LaVine said of his conversations with Murray.
Leonard was less insightful.
“Kawhi don’t talk a lot in general,” LaVine joked.
But Murray and LaVine text every so often, and the Bulls’ guard told him to reach out with any questions about his return. His parting message to Murray, though, was a reminder to embrace what wasn’t there.
“Take each day, remember how it felt to miss the game of basketball,” LaVine said.
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Murray doesn’t need LaVine, Leonard or Marcus Smart to gauge where he’s at along his arduous 18-month recovery from ACL surgery. These days, he just needs his house.
“I always use the stairs as a marker,” Murray said. “It’s landing, and it’s take off. I wake up, I go downstairs, I’m like, ‘Damn, sore today. What did I do yesterday?’ ”
Now, just hours away from a comeback that’s seen numerous stops and starts, the answer can finally be NBA basketball. Not that Murray’s return will be seamless or linear.
Four nights after his triumphant moment vs. Oklahoma City, as Murray was working through a difficult start in Chicago, a hamstring tweak ended his night, and eventually, his preseason. Perhaps impatient with the process, Murray conveyed his emotions to his coach.
“He apologized to me at one point,” Nuggets coach Michael Malone said. “I said, ‘Don’t ever apologize to me.’ You’re out here finding a rhythm. You missed 539 days of basketball.
“… I’ll go to war with Jamal Murray.”
On Wednesday night, Murray will soak it in, an 18-month void replaced by the game.
