Jamal Murray: Off-season Rumors are ‘nerve wracking’

Jamal Murray doesn’t get to come home often. Not back to Canada, and even less often back to the Kitchener-Waterloo region in Ontario where he was raised.

This off-season has been a busy one for the 20-year-old Murray. He’s traveled the globe partly for fun and partly due to sponsorship obligations all while trying to work on his game and get his body healthy. But earlier this week he put some time aside to put on a clinic of on-court drills for aspiring young Canadian basketball players at Conestoga College in conjunction with the BMO NBA Courts Across Canada program.

I talked to the guard going into his second season about adapting to the NBA, eating healthy, the trade rumors he’s been mentioned in, and the international growth of the game.

SN: This is your first experience with the crazy NBA off-season and rumor mill. How are you handling it?

Murray: It’s different knowing I could be in Cleveland right now. I could be in Minnesota. I could be anywhere in a couple days. It’s kind of nerve wracking because you don’t know what’s going on and there are so many rumors. I just have to stay ready and prepared for any opportunity.

SN: How many texts have you gotten about it?

Murray: I don’t really text a lot of people so it’s good to have nobody texting you about it. [laughing]

SN: Do you guys talk about it amongst yourselves as a team?

Murray: We kind of wait until it’s all said and done before we talk about it. We try and make sure everybody is on the same page with the guys that we’ve got. We’re going to have some workouts later to see what everybody has been doing. We kind of wait for the season and wait until we have everyone united and together before we make any decisions.

Source: Donnovan Bennet of SportsNet