For all the ques­tions the Nuggets answered about their promis­ing future this past sea­son, their riv­et­ing post­sea­son run raised another.

Do the Nuggets have two start­ing-cal­iber point guards on their roster?

After Jamal Mur­ray, Niko­la Jokic and Swiss-army wing Jera­mi Grant, Monte Mor­ris was prob­a­bly the next stead­i­est play­er dur­ing Denver’s play­off run to the West­ern Con­fer­ence Finals. Mor­ris, whose $1.7 mil­lion con­tract is non-guar­an­teed until the start of free agency, may have forced the Nuggets’ hand in terms of exten­sion talks. With­out a new deal, he’ll be an unre­strict­ed free agent next offseason.

“I don’t think it’s a secret to any­one,” Mor­ris told The Den­ver Post. “I would love to get an exten­sion here. I love Den­ver. I love every­thing from the orga­ni­za­tion to the coach­es all the way down to equip­ment, to every­one. Me, per­son­al­ly, hope­ful­ly, if it goes that way. I would love to be in Den­ver for how­ev­er long.”

There is believed to be mutu­al inter­est in a deal, how­ev­er it’s unclear if seri­ous con­ver­sa­tions have start­ed between Nuggets exec­u­tive Tim Con­nel­ly and Mor­ris’ agent Ron Shade, poten­tial­ly due to the league’s flu­id salary cap numbers.

The ques­tion becomes what’s fair val­ue for a back­up guard who many league insid­ers believe is good enough to be a starter? As a sec­ondary ques­tion, is there a path where Mor­ris can start in Den­ver? The Nuggets love get­ting Mur­ray off the ball, but their back­court would be small, espe­cial­ly on defense, by NBA stan­dards, by play­ing Mur­ray and Mor­ris as starters.

Last sea­son, Mor­ris aver­aged 9.0 points on 46% shoot­ing, includ­ing 38% from the 3‑point line. His assist-to-turnover ratio of 4.81 was sec­ond in the NBA. Beyond that, Mor­ris filled in admirably for an injured Mur­ray dur­ing a stretch in Jan­u­ary that thrust him into the start­ing line­up. Ever since arriv­ing in Den­ver after grind­ing in the G League, Mor­ris has been beloved in the Nuggets’ lock­er room.

Mem­phis guard Tyus Jones (7.4 points on 46% shoot­ing; 38% from 3 and the league’s best assist/turnover ratio at 5.18) is a fair com­par­i­son play­er-wise. Dur­ing the 2019 off­sea­son, Jones signed with Mem­phis on a 3‑year, $28 mil­lion deal.

Mil­wau­kee guard George Hill (9.4 points on 51% shoot­ing; league-high 46% from 3) is anoth­er decent com­par­i­son. He’s in the mid­dle of a 3‑year, $28 mil­lion deal himself.

On the oth­er end of the spec­trum is Wash­ing­ton guard Ish Smith, who aver­aged near­ly 11 points and five assists for a bad Wiz­ards team. He’s in the final year of a 2‑year, $12 mil­lion deal.

Any­thing in the $6 mil­lion-per-year range is believed to be a non-starter for Mor­ris, accord­ing to a league source.

As invalu­able as Mur­ray was in the “Bub­ble,” Mor­ris was more than sol­id in his own right. Mor­ris’ frus­trat­ing play­off debut two sea­sons ago gnawed at him. In Orlan­do, he redeemed him­self.  In 19 play­off games he aver­aged 9.1 points on 49% shoot­ing to pair with 2.7 assists.

Those num­bers essen­tial­ly dupli­cat­ed what he’d done dur­ing the reg­u­lar sea­son, tech­ni­cal­ly his third in the NBA, and fur­ther con­vinced Nuggets coach Michael Mal­one of Mor­ris’ value.

“Monte, he’s a play­er that you know what you’re going to get,” Mal­one said dur­ing Denver’s sec­ond-round series win over the L.A. Clip­pers. “He’s gonna go out there, he’s gonna val­ue the ball, he’s gonna make his team­mates better.”