Canadian star Jamal Murray playing big role in getting Denver Nuggets to NBA Finals
When Canadian NBA star Jamal Murray was a teenager at the Orangeville Prep Basketball Academy, he declined to have a mobile phone for most of his two years with the program.“Jamal just knew that it would be a distraction so he didn’t want one from the start,” said academy founder Jesse Tipping, president of the Athlete Institute.
“It’s great to see that someone who came here from Kitchener, bet on himself, bet on the Canadian system and dedicated everything he had towards his dreams is now playing for an NBA championship and is a leader on his team,” Tipping said.As a preteen, he’d often play pickup games against high school and college players. The Stanley Park Community Centre in Kitchener’s east end, about an hour’s drive from Toronto, became a home away from home.
At the Orangeville Prep court, a framed banner that includes Murray’s name, No. 23, and ‘Class of 2015′ is on display near the corner scoreboard.“He was special from the first day he was here,” Tipping said. “He had an attitude that a lot of people didn’t, where he was here on a mission to accomplish his dreams of making it to the NBA.
“Whenever you think that there’s going to be an empty gym, you’d come in and Jamal was in there,” Tipping said. “If it was early morning hours, late at night, you’d try to drag him out at midnight just to stop shooting, and he just wanted to keep shooting.Plaques and framed pictures of the six-foot-four guard are on display throughout the halls of the facility, which boasts alumni like Thon Maker, Lu Dort, Oshae Brissett and Ignas Brazdeikis.
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