#1: Jamal Murray and Gary Harris
The standard by which all under-25 NBA backcourts should aspire to be is set by the impressive Denver Nuggets duo of Jamal Murray and Gary Harris.
The Nuggets arrived last year, perhaps, ahead of schedule. They captured the second seed in the Western Conference after an impressive season.
This season they are going to be looking to take the next step and get to the NBA Finals. To do so, their already fantastic backcourt duo will need to take another step in their development.
They need to jump from the top under-25 backcourt in the NBA to just the top backcourt in the NBA.
Murray is on the cusp of vaulting into All-Star territory in a very heavily contested Western Conference guard pool.
Last season he was the Nuggets second-best player (behind Nikola Jokic) and according to basketball-reference, he averaged 18.2 points, 4.8 assists, and 4.2 rebounds.
Harris had a bit of a down year last year from a shooting perspective but he still has shown, throughout his career, that he has the ability to be a top-flight shooting guard in the NBA.
He also battled some nagging injuries last year, which could have hampered his shooting. Harris only played 57 games.
Arguably the most important aspect for justifying ranking these two at the top of the under-25 backcourt list goes beyond the box score. Harris and Murray mesh so well together.
Murray likes to initiate the offense and excels at it. Harris is excellent at coming off of screens and knocking down open jump shots. Murray has some work to do defensively, and Harris can lock down the opposing team’s best guard scorer.
The Cavaliers should push Darius Garland and Collin Sexton to try to emulate what Jamal Murray and Gary Harris have become.