2K gives Jamal Murray champion boost but rating still curious

Ahead of last season NBA 2k gave Jamal Murray a simple mission: prove it. The giant video game company told the Denver Nuggets guard that they’d need to see him reach his high heights again coming off his ACL tear before they’d boost his rating. 2K even dropped Murray’s rating going into last year.

Murray answered the mission and had the finest season of his pro career, capped with the first title in Denver hoops history. Now the 26-year-old guard finally got a big raise in the video game, signifying his real rise into the All-Star tier in the league, still the 26-year-old seems to think 2K didn’t give him enough love.

Murray first rose above an 80 in NBA 2K19, and has stuck between 84 and 85 since. Heading into NBA 2K24, he’ll be an 88 overall, the game shared on Twitter Thursday.

Murray reacted by sharing a facepalm on Twitter and asked the game to fix his jumper.

🤦🏽‍♂️ will u ATLEAST fix my jumper then @NBA2K

— Jamal Murray (@BeMore27) August 10, 2023

Murray is an avid player of the game, often running rec center five-on-five ball with his MyPlayer, but he does not use his own animations because they aren’t well replicated by the game.

More importantly, Murray, who threw six helpers a game to go along with his second-straight active season of scoring more than 20 points a game, proved it in the postseason. Keeping his 40% shooting from deep in the regular season into the playoffs where he went for 26, seven and six a game. His big outbursts against the Lakers in the conference finals and his dueling 30-point triple-double with Nikola Jokic in Game 3 of the NBA Finals added some more huge moments to Murray’s massive highlight tape of awesome nights.

Despite being the second-best player on a championship team to Jokic, who was rated a league-best 98 overall, Murray finds himself behind a few curious names. Jaylen Brown, the highest-paid player in the NBA but playoff failure, got an 89. Donovan Mitchell who has won many wars but is losing the battle to Murray got a 92. Jimmy Butler, who just lost to Murray in the Finals and had similar playoff stats got a 95, and fellow Canadian coming off a break out year, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was a 93. But what all these players have in common is they have been named to multiple All-Star or All-NBA teams, whereas Murray hasn’t yet gotten that in-season accomplishment. Surely in the second season coming off reconstructive knee surgery he’ll be even better and maybe reach that mark.

If you needed more evidence that the ratings are as much hype as they are accomplishment, the yet-to-play Victor Wembanyama got an 84, just four lower than Murray

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