Jamal Murray

About

Jamal Murray (born February 23, 1997) is a Canadian professional basketball player for the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played one season of college basketball for the Kentucky Wildcats. Murray was selected by the Nuggets as the seventh overall pick in the 2016 NBA draft and was a key contributor to the team’s first NBA championship run in 2023, becoming the ninth Canadian to win an NBA title. In 2026, Murray was named an NBA All-Star. He is also a member of the Canadian national team.

Murray was born and raised in Kitchener, Ontario, the son of Sylvia (who is from Syria) and Roger Murray (who was born in Jamaica and moved to Canada at age nine). He also has one younger brother, Lamar. His father ran track and field and played basketball in his youth, notably competing against Lennox Lewis, a Kitchener resident, before Lewis began his professional boxing career.
When Murray was three years old, he could play basketball “for hours” and at age six played in a league for ten-year-olds. By the age of 12 or 13, he began playing pick-up games against top high school and college players. His father put him through many basketball drills and…