The beep test requires a bleep but­ton. And it pro­vides insight into why Jamal Mur­ray can ascend in his ninth sea­son, even as his­to­ry sug­gests it is unlikely.

Ten years into the job, coach Michael Mal­one knows Mur­ray bet­ter than any­one. He loves Jamal the way Sean Pay­ton adores the Green­bri­er Resort. He pro­vid­ed a win­dow into his con­fi­dence in the point guard when asked about his readi­ness for the sea­son despite deal­ing with a sore knee.

For years play­ers were required to take a con­di­tion­ing exam — the beep test. They had to run to cones beyond half-court before the beep. The beeps would get quick­er, increas­ing the dif­fi­cul­ty. Bigs need­ed to score 14, wings 16 and guards 18.

“Some guys would get their required num­ber and call it good. Not Jamal. He would win it every year. And the fun­ny thing about it was I don’t know if Jamal was ever the best-con­di­tioned play­er when he won it,” Mal­one said recent­ly after prac­tice. “But Jamal’s men­tal abil­i­ty to endure the pain is sec­ond to none. Oth­er guys would get to a cer­tain beep and say ‘(Exple­tive) this, I am done.’ Jamal is pret­ty spe­cial in that regard.”

But the ques­tion lingers as the Nuggets attempt to recal­i­brate and make anoth­er run at an NBA cham­pi­onship: Will Mur­ray meet the require­ments of a fran­chise play­er? Will he be an engaged leader? Will he make the play­ers around him bet­ter? Sim­ply put, will he under­go the req­ui­site main­te­nance to stay healthy or remain con­tent on his cur­rent tra­jec­to­ry after get­ting paid?

Niko­la Jokic guar­an­tees the Nuggets are prob­a­bly no worse than a fifth seed in the West­ern Con­fer­ence. How Mur­ray plays, grows and con­tin­ues to devel­op will deter­mine whether the Nuggets con­tend for a championship.

He turns 28 in Feb­ru­ary, and last sea­son he showed signs of the tread thin­ning on the tire, a trend that con­tin­ued through­out a dis­ap­point­ing Olympic run that saw him com­ing off the bench for a Cana­di­an team that failed to medal.

No one ques­tions Murray’s men­tal tough­ness forged by work­outs with his father and illu­mi­nat­ed by his MMA train­ing that he admit­ted “is a lot of fun. I might have a career there after this.” It was an answer that was as insight­ful as it was con­cern­ing. He must fight a wan­der­ing mind.

The Nuggets — you know, his employ­ers — need him to coun­ter­punch this sea­son. After paus­ing for weeks, Den­ver and Mur­ray agreed to a four-year, $208.5 mil­lion con­tract exten­sion last month, keep­ing him under con­tract until 2029.

The win­dow remains open to win anoth­er title, but it will require more of Mur­ray. Those pedes­tri­an reg­u­lar sea­sons fol­lowed by red­line play­off runs won’t work any­more. The Nuggets ros­ter is no longer equipped to pick up the slack when Mur­ray is hurt or scor­ing 16 points.

Bruce Brown is long gone. And this off­sea­son Ken­tavi­ous Cald­well-Pope joined him. Rus­sell West­brook arrived and will pro­vide ener­gy, pas­sion and atti­tude. But he can’t shoot from distance.

The Nuggets believe in Chris­t­ian Braun, Julian Strawther and maybe even Zeke Nna­ji. But the sea­son will only point in the right direc­tion if the Blue Arrow is their top marks­man. He shot a career-best 42.5% from 3 last sea­son. Can he get to 45% and 54% from 2 in 70 games?

Mur­ray declined to reveal any indi­vid­ual goals dur­ing media day, but he knows what is at stake. The Nuggets need him to mod­el excel­lence to max­i­mize Jokic in his prime.

“It’s a new oppor­tu­ni­ty this sea­son for every­body. We don’t take that for grant­ed. There is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to win right now,” said Mur­ray, who aver­aged a career-high 21.2 points and 6.5 assists in 59 games last sea­son. “We know what it takes to win a cham­pi­onship and how hard it was try­ing to go back to back. We have bet­ter expe­ri­ence and bet­ter knowledge.”

But will they have a bet­ter Mur­ray? It is fair to won­der if he has hit his ceil­ing. Will he have the moti­va­tion at this point in his career to prove crit­ics wrong? There is a belief that West­brook, whose love for the game is con­ta­gious, will push Mur­ray. But shouldn’t it be the oth­er way around?

Mur­ray is a meme, the Nuggets’ Grumpy Cat. He was asked about his exten­sion, which is the equiv­a­lent of hit­ting the Power­ball, and pro­vid­ed a 10-word answer. He glared exclu­sive­ly at The Post in July when I asked him about the con­tract talks after an exhi­bi­tion game for Team Canada.

Part of the charm is Moody Mur­ray. He acts with imma­tu­ri­ty — he threw a heat pack on the floor dur­ing the play­offs — then he responds with a Pre­stone-in-the-veins game. The dif­fer­ence now is that the Nuggets require him to short­en the gap between off-nights.

It showed up in the play­offs. We all remem­ber when “Jamal Mur­ray made a shot” to van­quish the Lak­ers in Game 2 of the play­offs. But do you recall that he shot a career-low 31.5% from beyond the arc and aver­aged 20.6 points, six points below the pre­vi­ous two postseasons?

It is sim­ple. The Nuggets are try­ing to nav­i­gate the lux­u­ry tax and get back to the top. It requires Mal­one to trust and evolve with young players.

But the Nuggets can­not return to glo­ry with­out the best of Mur­ray. They need him to be an effi­cient pass­er, a great shoot­er, their Road Runner.

Beep, beep.

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