BOSTON — Alexander Volkanovski spends his afternoons these days traveling back in time. Eighteen hours, to be precise. “It’s usually lunch time here,” in Australia, between workout sessions, he says. The time difference works out perfectly. It’s the previous night in Denver, and the Nuggets are usually about to tip off.
Wearing his pajama T-shirt that reads “Champion Murray” with the words “Playoff” and “Finals” crossed out, the UFC champion rests in bed and watches his favorite team.
“Everyone thinks I’m a bandwagon jumper now because I’m a Nuggets guy,” Volkanovski told The Denver Post, proudly showing off the same T-shirt during a video interview. “But I was a Nuggets guy before they won.”
It’s an easy mistake to make. Last September, after Denver won its first NBA championship in franchise history, Volkanovski and Nuggets point guard Jamal Murray posted videos online of a grappling session in Windang, New South Wales. But their unlikely friendship actually goes back another (American) summer, and likely to continue this coming NBA offseason and future ones.
“I think next year I’ll be better,” Murray said. “That’s the goal. Just to be able to have him be like, ‘Oh, (crap). You’ve actually got some moves now.’”
MMA is to Murray as horse-racing is to Nikola Jokic: a lifelong passion outside of basketball. And Murray’s relationship with Volkanovski has influenced him across sports. He studies MMA footwork and technique, re-watches film of various professional fights, observes the weight-cutting obstacles that UFC athletes must endure before competing. Physically and mentally, Murray has always found fascination and inspiration in the dogmas of martial arts.
“A lot of people just like watching people punch each other in the face, or whatever it is,” Volkanovski said. “I think he does enjoy the martial arts and watching people go at it, but he loves all the other stuff behind it. What gets them into this shape? … While someone’s in front of them, how do they have the timing or the fight IQ or even that mental mindset to get through these situations? Or to deal with something thrown at them like that?”
Those are all examples of the array of questions Murray has asked Volkanovski over time. “Volk” is a rapid talker with an animated personality, the type to aggressively snap his fingers as he says “like that” to emphasize the split-second intensity of his professional decision-making. So he’s happy to indulge any such questions. He’s an ideal match for Murray’s curiosity. “Because even in basketball, he’s gonna be in a lot of them situations,” Volkanovski continued. “Maybe not getting punched in the face. But you’ve gotta think of something like that. You’ve gotta make the right decision. Otherwise, right on the buzzer, it’s hit or miss, you’re winning or losing. It’s under the pump.”
Volkanovski is the current UFC Featherweight Champion, a mainstay around the top of the world pound-for-pound rankings. Murray already had a trip planned for Australia in August 2022 when he realized he would be near one of the giants of the sport. Figuratively, anyway: Volk is 5-foot-6. The fighter was contacted by people with UFC about meeting Murray. He in turn extended an invite for Murray to come train with him.
Murray made the one-hour, 45-minute trek from Sydney for the occasion.
“I was more starstruck, honestly, the first time,” he told The Post. “It’s not often that you get to train with a champ so casually, where he extends the invite. I just realized he’s a humble guy and a down-to-earth guy. He has a gym, a really small gym, and that’s all he needs. And I’m like, this is what I need. This is perfect.”
Volkanovski wanted to test him. He knew Murray was athletic. Skill and strategy were another matter. They started with striking techniques. The teacher noticed how easily his new pupil picked up on certain cues, how easily he learned aspects of the craft “not for your average person.”
They switched sports, and roles, after they finished the MMA session. While messing around on a basketball court, Murray realized he needed to show Volkanovski how to move his wrists to get more arc on his jump shot — “It was like he was punching the ball into the hoop,” the point guard said — as well as how to make a layup. “I didn’t chuck it at the ring when I would do the layup,” Volkanovski recalled. “… I’m vertically challenged. So I get a disadvantage shooting hoops from the get-go. … I’m not used to finesse. Mine’s usually nice, solid brick hands doing damage.”
Volkanovski will be the first admit: Murray was a bit more familiar with his sport than he was with Murray’s.
But Volk was energized. He started tuning in when the Nuggets played. He went to their game in Boston in November 2022. From there, he and Murray flew to New York together to watch UFC 281 on Denver’s off day. Murray was in Chicago the next night, scoring 23 in one of his best offensive games of the season to that point. Back from his ACL injury, he was slowly regaining his groove. The Nuggets emerged as the best team in the Western Conference. Murray and Volkanovski stayed in touch.
“I was locked in,” Volkanovski said. By the playoffs, “I wanted to know who they were playing, how good they are.” So he watched games from other series matchups, not just Denver’s. Then from across the world, he watched the emotion on his new friend’s face as the Nuggets celebrated a championship.
Murray returned in September for more training.
Volkanovski showed him grappling chokehold maneuvers such as the guillotine, the backpack and the rear naked. Murray made the trip from Sydney four mornings in a row.
“This is back and forth, over and over,” Murray said. “So the first couple days, my whole neck hurt from being guillotined.”
Volkanovski noticed a trend as they grappled. He could easily “submit” Murray in seconds by using the guillotine. But not with any other moves. Murray was smart, strong, slippery. Throughout the week, he decided his goal was to survive a full minute without tapping out.
In the video Murray posted on social media, he finally won. Volkanovski committed to submitting his opponent with anything other than a guillotine. As the one-minute clock neared zeroes, he couldn’t. He resorted to a guillotine at the last second and succeeded — but right after the buzzer.
“He might not know exactly what’s going on, but if I’m trying to do something, if I’m trying to pull him one way, he’s gonna feel that,” Volkanovski said. “… So he has enough of an understanding of body mechanics to do it. But then he had a better understanding with the chokes. Like trying to get rear nakeds, his defense was actually pretty good. Mind you, he’s a lot bigger than me. He might not look big on a court with all these 7-foot blokes, but with me, he was good. So trying to take his back and things like that was hard to hold onto him, especially with his solid defense.”
Murray is a bit bulkier than most point guards. Backing down smaller guards has always been part of his game. He enjoys deploying physicality to create space as much as craftiness. An obvious question hangs over all the hours he’s dedicated to another sport in another hemisphere, though: To what end? Training with Volkanovski is taking a hobby to an entirely new level. Is it still just a pastime unrelated to basketball? Or is there utility in the skills he’s learning?
“Whenever people start talking (trash), he’s gonna sock somebody,” teammate Aaron Gordon interjected Thursday. “Don’t talk too crazy, or he’s gonna do a guillotine on the court.”
Murray laughed. Then his eyes narrowed, and he talked with the pace and enthusiasm of Volkanovski.
“Everything, honestly. The mindset is totally different,” he said. “Like, we turn the ball over, it’s like, ‘Awww. Next play.’ These guys are getting cracked in the face. And they have to come with a different mindset, or else they’re gonna get knocked out. Little stuff like that. The footwork, obviously. Being able to step in and out of range. It’s the same kind of thing. When I’m doing my fakes on the court, I’m trying to be deceptive, just like (Volk) is. A lot of different things. And a lot of it’s mental.
“You’re not just playing a basketball game. It’s very skillful. You’re going against a person. You’re going against the person behind the chessboard.”
Murray has shadowed Volkanovski at his own fights to study the contrasting mentalities of fight preparation (most pros only take a couple per year, as opposed to 82 basketball games), including the weight-cutting aspect. It was a brutal sight up-close. Volkanovski felt supported by Murray’s presence. Murray felt enlightened. “You forget that they have to take half their body weight away, just to build it back up in the next 24 hours to go knock somebody out and be able to take hits,” Murray said. “So it’s kind of surreal to watch.”
Part of Volkanovski’s allure in the UFC community is his willingness to take on anything, even fights that might seem ill-advised. Last October, he agreed to a rematch with lightweight champion Islam Makhachev on 11 days’ rest and got knocked out in the first round. It was his third fight of 2023, with another scheduled for this February.
Volkanovski returned to Australia in defeat, looking forward to hearing from Murray. He knew his basketball friend would have questions about why he took on the fight in the first place, what his mental state was with minimal preparation. He was eager through it, and equally eager to ask about the Denver Nuggets in return.
Want more Nuggets news? Sign up for the Nuggets Insider to get all our NBA analysis.