The decision on whether Jamal Murray will return to the court for the Denver Nuggets this season is apparently up to him. If he does return, he’ll have only a handful of games to get up to game speed before having to jump right into playoff-intensity basketball.
It’s a 50-50 chance that Murray plays this season according to The Denver Post as he needs to feel confident in his knee and conditioning before returning to game action.
In recent seasons, younger players who are returning from a major knee injury like an ACL or meniscus have been able to come back at full strength, resuming their career as usual. Shortly after his injury, I compared his return to that of Zach LaVine in 2017. While LaVine was slow to return, he eventually returned to form and has even surpassed where he was.
Assuming Jamal Murray, who’s only 25-years-old, has a similar recovery time to LaVine, he’ll be a bit shaky if he returns right now. Is that enough for the Denver Nuggets?
The Nuggets have really hit their stride in recent weeks and a big win over the Philadelphia 76ers pushed them to 11-3 in their past 14 games. The addition of DeMarcus Cousins has helped this bench unit form an identity and that is giving Michael Malone more opportunities to rest the MVP, Nikola Jokic.
Bones Hyland is coming into his own as a bench scorer, Bryn Forbes is lighting it up from behind the arc and is blending perfectly with Jokic, and Aaron Gordon and Monte Morris continue their career years.
The DNVR Denver Nuggets Podcast rightfully said that the vibes are immaculate around the team right now and while the Nuggets are only the sixth seed in a very stacked Western Conference, they’re looking dangerous come playoff time.
Denver Nuggets: Is it really worth bringing Jamal Murray back right before the business end of the season?
If Jamal’s a portion of what he usually is on both ends of the court, is that a better player than Monte or Will Barton? If not, is Jamal happy to ride the bench while Malone keeps this starting lineup going?
Would Malone play an injured Murray over Bones in a bench lineup? You probably don’t want to muck around with the rookie’s confidence like that. But if Jamal goes right into the starting lineup, that’ll push Monte or Will into the second unit with Bones as well.
In my opinion, if Jamal isn’t healthy or explosive enough to start games, then it’s not worth bringing him back right before the start of the playoffs.
When a few talking heads on ESPN say something along the lines of “wow, this team is great and then imagine if you add Jamal Murray in?”, they’re talking about what it’d look like on paper (and on TV for that matter, I guess it is their job to sell timeslots).
In reality, the entire time Jamal’s out there, he’s at risk of re-injuring a sore knee that has only just been cleared for five-on-five practice against the G League team, let alone clearing for a seven-game series against Golden State.
However, it’s important to realize (especially for me) that if Jamal is medically cleared to play, he should be okay to play, whether on a minute restriction or not. If the medical staff believe that the risk of re-injury is low enough for him to get out there, then who am I to sit here and say he should wait until the following season.
But there’s always going to be the argument of pushing it all over to next season, give Jamal some more rest, and see just how far this rag-tag, overperforming roster led by the greatest player in the entire league can go. I think it’s further than we all think.