Nuggets fans love Jamal Murray, as they rightly should; he was a massive part of why the team was able to bring the first championship in franchise history home to Denver in 2023. But there’s no denying the fact that he now has one of the worst contracts in the entire NBA.
This issue was highlighted on Wednesday afternoon when the Suns and Bradley Beal were able to agree to a buyout, letting Beal out of his absurd contract. Now that Beal’s deal is officially off the books, it raises the question: Who has the worst contract in the league?
Sure, there are guys whose deals are questionable due to durability concerns, like Joel Embiid, Paul George, and others. But in terms of a production basis, when fully healthy, there is nobody in the league who is paid more for less production than Murray.
Murray is entering the first season of his four-year, $208 million max contract extension he agreed to last summer. That deal starts off paying Jamal $46.4 million for the coming season, and increases each year, paying him a fully guaranteed $57.5 million in 2028-29, a season in which he’ll turn 32.
Murray needs to be much more reliable
Murray’s playoff heroics are well documented, but the reality of the situation is that Jamal has never sniffed an All-NBA team and has never even been named an All-Star. He steadily puts up around 20 points and 6 assists a night, but that seems to be his plateau. He’ll have huge games here and there, but can also disappear on other nights.
For a max-contract player, he’s just not consistently great enough. His durability is another issue, making this contract even more questionable. Over the past six seasons, Murray has played in 59, 48, 0, 65, 59, and 67 games. Even at his ceiling, he missed almost 20% of the regular season.
Murray also didn’t have a great playoffs last season, for the second year in a row, since winning the title. It’s one thing if he goes supernova in the postseason every year, but lately that hasn’t exactly been the case either. He has been a good, but not great player who’s a liability on the defensive end, and struggles to stay on the court.
He’s hugely important to the Nuggets, and they may not even be contenders without him. Jamal isn’t going anywhere and will continue to play the role of Robin to Nikola Jokic’s Batman. It’s also fair to say, it would be nice if his massive contract weren’t quite so cumbersome.