Peregrine01 wrote:cupcakesnake wrote:He's injured. It's pretty evident he doesn't have the pop or explosivness he had last year when he was dancing around pick & rolls and cutting out peoples throats.
He's making the occasional good play but night to night it's been pretty brutal. It doesn't help that he's playing against a murder of crow perimeter defensive group in Minnesota.
He's hurt but he's always hurt. Injury proneness is as much a part of a player's make-up just like height or weight is.
Beyond that, I've always been skeptical of his game. Now, I've had to eat crow a few times cause he can go on hot streaks because of his off-the-dribble and movement shooting during the playoffs but for the most part he's been a streaky shooter throughout his career. When his shot is off, what else is he bringing to the table? He doesn't get to the rim well at all and because he can't beat his man he can't get easy buckets for himself, stress the defense or get to the line. He has a tendency to overdribble into really difficult shots and often gets tunnel vision. He has nice synergy with Jokic but pretty much every player that plays with Jokic synergizes well with him. I'm not convinced that he's an all-star level guard that many like to paint him as.
No pushback on his injury prone-ness. I generally always hope a player with injury problems gets a good run of health and changes the narrative. Sometimes it happens! Sometimes it ruins a players career. I'm pointing out his injury right now because I think a lot of people are ignoring it and choosing to believe he's just playing bad because he's not that good.
I think healthy Jamal Murray is one of the most dynamic screen action guards in the NBA. Not only does he have the deep pull up range, but he knows how to leverage the threat of the pull up into driving and playmaking opportunities. He's a crafty finisher when he does get to the hoop, though he's not a prolific driver. He's one of the most active guard cutters in the league. Yes, this synergizes beautifully with Jokic, but I think Murray would maintain a surprising amount of value paired with a more mundane dribble hand off hub (think Hartenstein or Nurkic). He combines high motor scoring aggression with a lot of cleverness and timing. On top of that, I think his secondary skills are very solid in terms of playmaking and defense. He's not amazing in this areas but he's above average.
People want to call it a hot streak, but when you go on multiple 20-game hot streaks in the playoffs when it matters most, it's hard to discount that. On the flip side, he's never had a regular season where he's really had much of an argument to make the all-star game.
Murray just turned 27 and might have quite a bit of prime basketball. His injuries might continue, or his injury like could improve. I don't buy the argument that we should accept who he is at his worst and call that the more accurate version of Murray. I'm also fine with people pointing out his 2 playoff runs aren't the whole picture either.
thanks, jamal.