{"id":341422,"date":"2025-12-12T23:28:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T23:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/341422\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T23:28:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T23:28:08","slug":"nuggets-star-gets-unexpected-nod-on-nba-mvp-ladder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/341422\/","title":{"rendered":"Nuggets Star Gets Unexpected Nod on NBA MVP Ladder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6p\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/nuggets\/onsi\/news\/nuggets-have-one-main-weakness-despite-historic-season-start\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Denver Nuggets<\/a> have been off to their best start in a season in franchise history, winning 18 of their first 24 games as they sit in second place in the Western Conference. To nobody&#8217;s surprise, the star of the show has been three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic, who is having a historically impressive season, but he has had some help. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6s\">Nuggets star guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/nuggets\/onsi\/news\/jamal-murray-reveals-mindset-denver-nuggets-success-on-road\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jamal Murray<\/a> has been having the best season of his career, and he is getting some well-deserved recognition for it. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6v\">In the latest MVP ladder by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/news\/kia-mvp-ladder-dec-12-2025\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA.com&#8217;s Shaun Powell<\/a>, Jokic remained in the top spot, but Murray rose to the &#8220;five more&#8221; section, labeling him as a top-15 candidate for the esteemed award. <\/p>\n<p>Jamal Murray the&#8230; MVP candidate?<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/01kca42b6vngq13rkqv3.jpg\" alt=\"Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray\" title=\"Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray\" width=\"2089\" height=\"1392\" class=\"undefined w-full w-full blur-[5px]\" q:id=\"77\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Dec 7, 2025; Charlotte, North Carolina, USA; Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray (27) drives in during the second half against the Charlotte Hornets at the Spectrum Center. | Sam Sharpe-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7b\">Murray, 28, has never made an All-Star appearance through the first eight seasons of his career, and now he is suddenly recognized as one of the NBA&#8217;s premier talents. Murray is grouped with guys like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Victor Wembanyama in this &#8220;next five&#8221; section, and while he falls outside of the top ten, this is a very notable spot to be. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7e\">This season, Murray has averaged 24.4 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 6.9 assists per game, shooting 50.0% from the field, 44.2% from three-point range, and 89.0% from the free-throw line. Murray has always been recognized as a playoff riser, but he is finally making significant noise early into the regular season to cement himself as one of the NBA&#8217;s top point guards. <\/p>\n<p>Murray will not win MVP, but his All-Star case is strong<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7k\">Sorry to burst any potential bubble about this Murray MVP thing, but just because he is listed on the MVP ladder does not mean he is a legitimate candidate for the award. Of course, most people know that, and it is still great to recognize how impressive he has been this season. <\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">He\u2019s a <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/MALLSTAR?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#MALLSTAR<\/a> \u203c\ufe0f<\/p>\n<p>Jamal Murray is on ANOTHER LEVEL this season \ud83e\udd2f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/djzWdaMHkH\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/djzWdaMHkH<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 DNVR Nuggets (@DNVR_Nuggets) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DNVR_Nuggets\/status\/1999338847268913450?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 12, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-blue my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7q\">While Murray will not be in the MVP race like his superstar teammate, he could certainly get the first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/nuggets\/onsi\/news\/making-the-nba-all-star-case-for-nuggets-jamal-murray\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">All-Star nod<\/a> of his career this season. Jokic has never had an All-Star teammate, and if Murray does not get that recognition this season, then he likely never will. Off to the hottest start of his career, Murray undoubtedly deserves some All-Star love, especially with the new USA-versus-international format. <\/p>\n<p>More Denver Nuggets Content<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Denver Nuggets have been off to their best start in a season in franchise history, winning 18&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-341422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}