Jamal Murray will be one of five former Kentucky Wildcats featured in this year’s NBA All-Star Game(s). But he’s the lone first-time selection of the bunch — an achievement that had been a long time coming for the 28-year-old out of Canada.

Murray was a no-doubt choice to be named an All-Star for the way he’s performed over halfway through the 2025-26 season. Now in year 10 (TEN!!!) with the Denver Nuggets, the team that drafted him 7th overall back in 2016, he’s playing the best ball of his career through 45 games. The 6-foot-4 point guard is averaging career highs in points (25.5), assists (7.5), and rebounds (3.9) per game while also shooting career-high percentages from the field (48.7) and beyond the arc (43.9). Denver is currently third in the Western Conference with a 33-17 record and the best offense in the entire NBA.

All of that has been great, but what really stands out from Murray this season is how he’s helped sustain the Nuggets’ success while three-time MVP Nikola Jokic (also named an All-Star) was sidelined for a good bit of time due to injury. In the 12 games Murray has played this season without Jokic, he averaged 27.8 points, 8.3 assists, and 4.2 rebounds per outing on shooting splits of 49.6/40.5/86.7.

Even without arguably the best basketball in the world by his side, Murray still led Denver to a 7-5 mark in those contests.

Nikola Jokić on Jamal Murray:
“I wouldn’t change him. I wouldn’t change him for anybody… whenever I say who is my top five of my career, he’s definitely number one” pic.twitter.com/X3N2f4kPvI

— Tatiana (@Tatianaclinares) February 2, 2026

This isn’t the first season Murray has been deserving of an All-Star nod, but it is the first season where all the pieces finally came together.

Murray was on pace to play in his first All-Star Game several years ago. In the midst of the wonky 2020-21 season, when the schedule was all out of sorts due to the pandemic, he was playing his best ball to that point in his pro career. But a torn ACL in April 2021 sidelined him the rest of the way, and ultimately the entirety of the 2021-22 campaign. Up until then, he was averaging 21.2 points, 4.8 assists, and four rebounds per outing on shooting splits that were a career-best at the time.

Following an 18-month recovery break, Murray mostly picked up where he left off to begin the 2022-23 season. His playmaking improved, but his shooting numbers needed a bit longer before returning to what they were pre-injury. That kept him from being in real consideration for an All-Star spot, but it didn’t keep him and Jokic from winning the NBA Finals to close out the season.

Over the next two years, Murray’s overall game slowly improved, as did his counting stats. But he missed 14 games due to injury prior to the All-Star break in 2023-24. That hurt his All-Star case. Even still, he was much higher on the voting leaderboards (10th among Western Conference guards) compared to the last season (21st). And despite playing on another great Denver team, the 2024-25 season saw him post similar numbers as 2023-24 — the All-Star voters were not as impressed by Murray with that in mind. He was clearly among the upper echelon of NBA guards, but his production was plateauing.

It was at this point that Murray had officially joined the “best player to never make an All-Star Team” group. He’d averaged 20 or more points per game in four straight healthy seasons. Denver was a perennial contender with him on the floor. Alongside Jokic, they created one of the most efficient and dangerous two-man attacks the new era had ever seen.

But playing next to an all-time great like Jokic might have actually hurt his All-Star potential more than it helped. The numbers Murray posted this season while Jokic was on the bench undoubtedly helped his case with voters. Over the years, Murray has also had to battle against other incredibly talented Western Conference guards for these limited All-Star spots, such as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Luka Doncic, Steph Curry, Anthony Edwards, Devin Booker, etc.

This year, however, he did just enough to join that group for this year’s event.

Did Murray receive a bump because of the new All-Star Game format? Potentially. In another (likely futile) effort to revive what has turned into an emotionless pickup game, the NBA has incorporated a new U.S. vs. World format. Two U.S. teams and one international team (each made up of eight players minimum) will compete in a round-robin tournament.

But what Murray has done this season hardly makes it seem like his All-Star nod was just so the league could hit a certain criteria with international players — this was 100 percent earned from the former Kentucky guard.