Shannon Sharpe implies Jamal Murray defers to Nikola Jokic like Kobe deferred to Shaq: ‘Murray is more than capable’

An ankle injury has kept Denver Nuggets star big man Nikola Jokic sidelined for more than a week now, and guard Jamal Murray has had some strong performances with his partner in crime on the shelf.

He helped the Nuggets snap the Houston Rockets’ nine-game winning streak on Sunday with a standout performance. Murray carried Denver on his back from a scoring standpoint, as he dropped a game-high 39 points while shooting 15-of-28 from the field and 4-of-6 from 3-point range.

After Murray’s offensive outburst against Houston, former NFL star Shannon Sharpe compared Murray’s situation with the Nuggets to how Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant played alongside teammate Shaquille O’Neal.

“Jamal Murray is more than capable of this,” Sharpe said, seemingly in reference to Murray’s recent showing against Houston. “He has to defer because he’s playing along the best player in the NBA. So, he defers a lot of his game. But you see when Jok is not on the court and he gets the green light, à la Kobe, we saw Kobe — when Shaq was out — we saw Kobe do just what Jamal Murray did, which gave us the assurance if Shaq ever moved on, Kobe could definitely be the guy that can lead a team. And Jamal Murray is just like that. If he’s in the Eastern Conference, he’s an All-Star.”

There’s a real argument to be made that Bryant played second fiddle to O’Neal during their time together on the Lakers, at least for a good amount of it. O’Neal took home Finals MVP awards in every title during the team’s three-peat, but after he departed Los Angeles, Bryant was the top dog on Lakers teams that won titles in 2009 and 2010.

The Nuggets lost their most recent contest to the Chicago Bulls on Monday, but Murray had another big scoring game. He totaled 28 points and buried half of his 22 shots from the field against a Chicago squad that has now won each of its last three games.

While Murray has had back-to-back fantastic scoring games sans Jokic on the floor, it’s worth noting that he is actually averaging 21.7 points per contest across nine games this season without the Serbian, a mark that is identical to his season average, so he hasn’t been overwhelmingly dominant without Jokic.

Murray and the Nuggets will hope to avoid their second loss in a row when they face off against the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday. If Jokic isn’t feeling up to playing in that contest, Denver might need a big offensive game from Murray in order to come out on top. The Bucks sit as the No. 5 seed in the Eastern Conference at 40-31.