Jamal Murray To Practice With Grand Rapids Gold

The Nuggets have assigned injured guard Jamal Murray to their NBAGL affiliate club, the Grand Rapids Gold, to practice with the team, per Harrison Wind of DNVR Sports (Twitter link).

The odds of Murray playing at all this season had been considered tenuous recently, so any movement on this front has to be encouraging news for Nuggets fans. He is expected to return to Denver following Grand Rapids’ practice on Saturday.

Wind adds (via Twitter) that the Nuggets will assess Murray following his workouts with the team’s G League affiliate and decide how to move forward with the 6’3″ vet’s recovery timeline after that. According to Wind, Denver’s other injured star, small forward Michael Porter Jr., has yet to join the Gold for a workout.

Murray was enjoying a breakout season during 2020/21 prior to his ACL tear, notching a career-best 21.2 PPG on .477/.408/.869 shooting, plus 4.8 APG, 4.0 RPG and 1.3 SPG through 48 games.

With Murray and Porter shelved, reigning 2021 MVP Nikola Jokic has shouldered a massive burden this season for Denver. The Nuggets have remained very competitive with their All-NBA center at the helm, sporting a 41-28 record as the West’s sixth seed as of this writing. The team is just 1.5 games behind the Jazz for the fourth seed and home court advantage in the first round of the forthcoming playoffs. The additions of Murray and Porter this season, should they at least somewhat resemble their pre-injury selves, could help Denver become a legitimate contender this year.

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