Murray inks $208-M extension

LOS ANGELES (AFP) — Canadian star guard Jamal Murray has agreed to a four-year National Basketball Association (NBA) contract extension worth $208 million with the Denver Nuggets, according to multiple reports on Saturday.

Murray, who has spent all seven of his NBA seasons with the Nuggets, helped Denver win an NBA title in 2023 and sparked Canada’s run to last month’s Paris Olympic quarter-finals.

The Denver Post and ESPN reported Murray’s new maximum extension deal, which keeps him with the Nuggets through the 2028-2029 campaign. He would have been eligible for free agency next year.

Murray, 27, had career highs of 21.2 points and 6.5 assists a game last season for the Nuggets as well as career-best 48.1 percent shooting and 42.5 percent 3-point shooting.

Denver lost to Minnesota in seven games in the second round of last season’s NBA playoffs.

Murray suffered a torn left knee ligament and missed the entire 2021-22 campaign but returned to following season and averaged 20.0 points and 6.2 assists in Denver’s run to the championship.

Together with three-time NBA Most Valuable Player Nikola Jokic, Murray forms an inside-outside combination at the core of the Nuggets success over the past few seasons.

Murray, the seventh overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, took a Nuggets team that had gone past the first playoff round only once since 1994 and lifted it into the second round or better in the past five seasons he has played.