{"id":603354,"date":"2026-02-14T20:33:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T20:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/603354\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T20:33:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T20:33:18","slug":"nikola-jokic-finally-gets-a-nuggets-teammate-at-all-star-weekend-in-jamal-murray-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/603354\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikola Jokic finally gets a Nuggets teammate at All-Star weekend in Jamal Murray"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"His right wrist wrapped from an injury, Denver Nuggets center Nikola Joki\u0107 gets up after an interview following an NBA basketball game against the Memphis Grizzlies Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski)\"\"Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray, left, blocks a shot by Memphis Grizzlies guard Scotty Pippen Jr. in the second half of an NBA basketball game Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski)<\/p>\n

DENVER | Nikola Jokic will finally see a very familiar face at the NBA All-Star Game.<\/p>\n

The Denver Nuggets superstar center was named an All-Star for the eighth consecutive season and will start for the sixth straight year. And for the first time, he\u2019ll have a teammate tagging along as Jamal Murray earned the first All-Star berth of his nine-year career thanks to career-high averages across the board.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels really good,\u201d Jokic said. \u201cHe\u2019s been playing at a really high level the last two years. \u2026 It\u2019s good for him to be there because he\u2019s supposed to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jokic, a three-time NBA MVP, is again in the midst of an historic season. He\u2019s the first player in NBA history to reach the All-Star break having hit the following marks:<\/p>\n

\u20141,000 points.<\/p>\n

\u2014475 rebounds.<\/p>\n

\u2014400 assists.<\/p>\n

\u2014250 converted free throws.<\/p>\n

\u201475 3-pointers.<\/p>\n

\u201430 blocks.<\/p>\n

And he did it despite missing 16 games with a knee injury and often having to wrap and ice his aching right hand after games like he did Wednesday night following Denver\u2019s 122-116 win over Memphis in which he posted another triple-double.<\/p>\n

Murray is having a career year, himself, averaging career bests in points (25.8), assists (7.6) and rebounds (4.4) per game. He\u2019s also had 13 30-point games and 11 times he\u2019s dished out double digits in assists.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets went into the All-Star break in third place in the Western Conference at 35-20 despite an injury-riddled season that has seen all five starters miss time and six of their top rotation players go out for significant stretches.<\/p>\n

After losing to eventual champion Oklahoma City in seven games in the playoffs last year, the Nuggets bolstered their depth, which has been tested way beyond what they could have imagined back in October.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had everybody on our roster contribute at some point this season,\u201d Jokic said. \u201cSome guys won us a couple of games that don\u2019t play big minutes right now. Injuries definitely hurt us, but I think they gave us something, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, Jokic and Murray are at their best when they\u2019re on the court together, especially in the fourth quarter where their two-man game is one of the best since Karl Malone and John Stockton.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely help each other throughout our careers and definitely made each other much better,\u201d Jokic said.<\/p>\n

Murray has long said that if he were to make an All-Star Game, he\u2019d take it competitively and seriously, suggesting he\u2019d rather vacation than play in the game if it\u2019s just a no-defense display of teams burning up the nets.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m down to play 1-on-1, I don\u2019t care, I\u2019m just a competitor,\u201d Murray said. \u201cSo I want to be known as one of those guys who\u2019s going to play hard every time he steps on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n

The All-Star Game is nothing new for Jokic but Murray is a novice on this stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust the experience,\u201d coach David Adelman said when asked what he hoped Murray would get out of the festivities. \u201cI\u2019ve gotten to do it as an assistant coach. I think it\u2019s just the experience being around the other guys. They have the glorified practice but you really get to know these other people that you competed against at a really high level in the playoffs and all those other things. I\u2019ll be interested to see what the new format\u2019s like, but just for him to get the notoriety of what it is and he deserves it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new format pits international players and Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an honor to go and represent your team,\u201d Adelman said, \u201crepresent the league and now represent the world, it\u2019s cool the way they\u2019re doing this, I hope it works out, I hope the guys are competitive but it\u2019s just so deserved.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just happy for him to go get the experience, I think Nikola\u2019s not as excited. It\u2019s cool for two of our guys to go. It really says a lot about what our season\u2019s been. Those guys go and they represent these other players, what these other players did for them during the first half of the season to get us to where we\u2019re at, to put us in position to be a part of the conversation.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, yeah, he\u2019s representing all of us when he goes there.\u201d<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His right wrist wrapped from an injury, Denver Nuggets center Nikola Joki\u0107 gets up after an interview following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3781],"tags":[7,301,187,3943,762,6,7218,253,302],"class_list":{"0":"post-603354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-nuggets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-denver","10":"tag-denver-nuggets","11":"tag-denvernuggets","12":"tag-jamal-murray","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-nba-all-star-game","15":"tag-nikola-jokic","16":"tag-nuggets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116070895945754408","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}