3 studs and 1 dud from Sunday night's Nuggets preseason game

Dud #1: Jamal Murray

Unfortunately, part of the reason that the Nuggets need MPJ to step up is because Jamal Murray continues to look off. He was unhealthy all offseason and had a brutal showing in the Olympics. But he showed up early to training camp, signed a new contract extension, and there was hope that he was ready to hit the ground running.

But that hasn’t been the case at all. Murray was only able to play half the game on Sunday and didn’t look very good out there. In 18 minutes, he scored just 2 points on 1/6 shooting and missed all three of his three-point attempts.

Furthermore, it seemed Malone was upset about the conditioning and fitness of the team, and based on what we saw, that was likely referring to Murray. We’re barely a week away from the start of the NBA’s regular season and Murray doesn’t look close to himself.

The Nuggets need Murray more than ever this season to step up and be a true, reliable number two option and second star alongside Jokic. They paid him the max contract he wanted for the next four years and they need him to live up to that.

At this point, it’s unclear if the issue is health, fitness, or just poor play. But either way, it’s not good. And the time to get this figured out is running low. The Nuggets are focused on winning a title and want to be clicking on all cylinders in April, May, and June.

They know as well as anyone that it’s a long season and they don’t need to push too hard in October. But at the same time, they need to get to the postseason and need to be in a position to win. The West is as competitive as ever this season and the Nuggets can’t afford to coast through the regular season.

This doesn’t all fall on Murray, but he has the biggest contract and expectations of guys who aren’t showing out right now. Again, we don’t need playoff Murray for 82 games, but we certainly can’t get this preseason version of Jamal either; he needs to pick it up.