Keegan "Keegan Murray" Murray
- Thread starter Tetsujin
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Honestly he's outplaying my expectations. The defense is the most surprising.
I guess he really did grow an inch and add 4 inches to his vert. He obviously put on about 15 lbs of muscle too. Early returns, but this appears to be one of the best freshman to sophomore jumps in recent memory.
He's a borderline all-star ... NOW.
I guess he really did grow an inch and add 4 inches to his vert. He obviously put on about 15 lbs of muscle too. Early returns, but this appears to be one of the best freshman to sophomore jumps in recent memory.
He's a borderline all-star ... NOW.
Keegan's defense tonight was the best individual effort I've seen from a King in a long time. Maybe since like Artest days if I'm being honest. He absolutely smothered one of the best scorers in the NBA like it was nothing; to the point where Mitchell only got space if he got switched off him. Actually looked like prime Kawhi out there just erasing scorers on a nightly basis.
To think that when he was drafted we all were debating whether he could play the 3 or was strictly a 4. Well, if position is determined by who you can guard, I'd say he's a 1, a 2, a 3 and a 4. Matt Barnes characterized his defensive play as "incredible." I'll second that. His offense was just ok. He only scored 25 points off of 13 shots. I'm still waiting for a waterfall of 40 point explosions.
Keegan is a flat-out baller. His aww-shucks demeanor throws people but he's actually one of the most competitive players on the court. He set an all-time rookie record last year and he was still more or less forgotten about in most of the pre-season coverage of the league. I'm already on record in predicting a growth curve similar to Jayson Tatum for him but I'm starting to wonder if even that is underrating his potential. I'm really happy that we've got him on our team and that he's got guys like D. Fox and Coach Brown in his ear pushing him to be the best version of himself.
I mean, tonight was just a straight up prime Kawhi performance. 25-8 on elite efficiency and absolutely jailing the other teams best player. It's almost like you could see it click when he's like "Oh. I know exactly how to guard this guy" and it was just over for Mitchell. If people wanted to see a "3rd star" performance, this was it.
It's super surprising. I was on the Keegan-or-bust train when the Kings pulled the 4th pick in his draft. I saw a lot of potential on the offensive end, and I thought his length would serve him well as an NBA defender, but I didn't imagine he'd look like Kawhi out there in year 2! I'm really impressed with the effort and awareness we're seeing from him on that side of the ball. I don't imagine he'll ever become Kawhi-like on the offensive side of things, but we see occasional flashes of downhill burst that suggest it's in Keegan's bag. We'll see if he develops that tool, too.
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