Jeebus
Keegan “KEEGAN MURRAY” Murray
- Thread starter Tetsujin
- Start date
Oof - misery loves company
The amount of excuses fans come up for Keegan are crazy. Name a player in the NBA who doesn’t have to play defense too?? The fatigue excuse is lazy.
Just because he has the toughest defensive assignment out in the perimeter does not excuse him on forgetting how to shoot the 3 ball.
It’s not like we’re trotting him out there and asking him to take over games. We just ask him to make open shots.
How come defense has never affected the way guys like Kawhi, Artest, JJJ, BAM, or Butler play offense?
He’s not right mentally on offense right now and his shot is slumping hard.
Just because he has the toughest defensive assignment out in the perimeter does not excuse him on forgetting how to shoot the 3 ball.
It’s not like we’re trotting him out there and asking him to take over games. We just ask him to make open shots.
How come defense has never affected the way guys like Kawhi, Artest, JJJ, BAM, or Butler play offense?
He’s not right mentally on offense right now and his shot is slumping hard.
Nobody is making excuses. They're trying to figure out what the heck is causing the slump. But go off I guess
Just look at more than half of this thread and most of the past month.
I think answers are blatant. He’s mentally frazzled, going through a shooting slump, and his 3pt shooting was likely never as good as his rookie year advertised.
He overachieved in his rookie year when he broke the record and shot 41.1% from 3pt. You take a look at his college shooting percentages, and it’s very abnormal to see any player take a 10% jump in 3pt shooting from one year to another. In Keegan’s case, he went from 29.6 to 39.8. However, his FT shooting actually slightly decreased and was very mediocre going from 75.5 to 74.7. With his mediocre FT shooting and sudden jump in 3pt %, this highly suggested that Keegan’s true 3pt shooting was somewhere in the middle at an average around 36%.
In his rookie year, all of the stars aligned for him to break the rookie 3pt record:
- The entire league was completely banged up
- The Kings had a completely unknown that was being led for the first time ever by Sabonis and Mike Brown
- Because of reasons 1 & 2, the Kings had a historic “best offense ever”
- Keegan was designated to being a spot up shooter
- Keegan was the 5th option in the starting lineup with a ton of wide open shots because teams left him wide open and dared him to make shots
What happened the following year? We saw a sharp and drastic decline from 41.1% to 35.8%. That’s completely unheard of if you truly are an elite shooting player in this league. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to say it took Klay and MPJ at least 5+ seasons before their 3pt % every dipped below 40% (just barely), whereas Keegan took a nosedive immediately in his 2nd year. Teams no longer saw him as an unthreatening and unproven rookie shooter in the league. His shots that were wide open, weren’t as open anymore. Teams weren’t doubling and triple teaming Sabonis anymore.
As the Kings, you kinda hoped that 35.8% was his floor… but narrowing in his 2nd year, Keegan showed a bit more with his shots creating and ball handling, but I don’t think it was to the level that anyone hoped for. He never looked comfortable. He showed small flashes, maybe once a game, but it was never consistent.
Fast forward to his 3rd year, he’s no longer an unproven rookie that teams dare to shoot. The Kings also hope that bringing in DeMar, allows pressure off Keegan to be the #3 guy, and instead build on what we saw from year 2. However, we’ve seen no improvement in ball handling. No improvements in shot creating. And now what are you left with? A frustrated 3rd year player that defenses are now forcing him to be 1 dimensional scorer as a shooter who teams force to pick up his handles, teams stop him in the paint, and now he’s in his own head about his shot.
It’s almost reverting back to his rookie year where teams make him uncomfortable by turning him into a jump shooter, but now, they are cutting off his on-ball plays, and limiting his off-ball plays to the basket. When he’s not successfully converting those easier shots that he’s used to, he starts to second guess himself as a player. He loses confidence in himself, and he’s already more of a quieter guy. That loss of confidence expands to his 3pt shot.
Having the toughest defensive assignments can hinder your offensive production, but we’re talking about our 4th/5th option here. That’s why I think the excuse is lame. There’s plenty of 2-way players.
It’s a mental block more than it is a physical muscle gain or fatigue. Mentally frazzled and lacks confidence in himself. He doesn’t have the alpha mentality to shoot his way back into games. I think this is something he has to do outside of our regular season games.
To put it lightly, Keegan is playing scared on offense, and he was never really as good of a shooter as his rookie year suggested.
ShastaKingsFan
All-Star
I think the point is that maybe playing defense on good players, is not a good reason for bad shooting from the beginning of the season. Hard to imagine Fox or any other elite players who play a lot using that excuse.
I don't expect Murray to bring it up as an excuse either
sactowndog
All-Star
Keegan needs a break but this roster is so poorly constructed no one exists who can give him one.
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
A solution might be to just run a little more DHO at the start of games. Keegan is clearly almost entirely dependent on players like Domas and Fox to generate shot opportunities for him. This is why his first year he never even entered the ISO stat charts and in the 2nd year just barely scraped in on about as few attempts as you possibly can in the NBA. This year there are only 4 Kings players getting into the ISO charts and it's who you would expect, Fox, DDR, Domas, and Monk. Monks leading the way in the 95th percentile. The question is how much longer that sustains though because his historical numbers are around at best 45th or so. Fox is way under normal and DDR is right about where he always is in the 85th percentile. As the Kings have become more ISO oriented, as they should since we know the DHO wasn't a playoff route already, it makes sense that Keegan would be a little off kilter.
He’s going to eventually get through this, but we literally need him to start playing well in order for the Kings to win… This feels very discouraging and disappointing if you’re the FO.
It’s an easy pill to swallow for someone struggling like Kevin Huerter because he’s got no real future here with the Kings. But Keegan? That’s different. 4th overall pick in his 3rd year on his rookie scale… talking potentially 5 more contractual years, and someone who’s supposed to be a big part of this team long-term.
This team has always lacked mental toughness going back to the DeMarcus days… Keegan’s demeanor reminds me a lot of Travis Outlaw. That’s a little concerning for me. His talents will need to carry him, but they haven’t yet.
iowamcnabb
Hall of Famer
Easy extend. Probably be something similar to the Trey Murphy deal
Clearly we extend him but probably let him get a market value contract offer rather than max him unless he puts it all together.
iowamcnabb
Hall of Famer
Murphy got 4 for 112. Id have to think that’s the kinda deal he is heading for
I think that's not far off.
twslam07
All-Star
If he continues this type of play, I think he’d be lucky to get that.
Murphy got that contract while playing good ball and he very well may be the better player between the two today.
iowamcnabb
Hall of Famer
Pretty comparable numbers offensively and both very good defenders. Trey has been the more consistent 3 pt shooter (not this year though at 30 percent on 8 attempts per through 8 games)
One thing that could hurt Keegan is we now have 4 high usage players in the starting lineup. I think Monks insertion into the starting lineup will help take pressure off Keegan and likely help bust him out of the slump but it could negatively impact his numbers long term.
still, you don’t get 6’8 defenders who haven’t started their prime and still have plenty of offensive potential for less than a 100 mil
Another way to look at this is that Keegan has played 189 out of 196 possible games in his career, including playoffs (96.4%).
Zion has played 190 out 415 possible games in his career (45.8%) and has never made the playoffs.
They basically average the same number of minutes when they do play (32.3 for Keegan, 31.8 for Zion).
Zion is 44 days older than Keegan. Zion is amazing when he plays, but it would be interesting to see the betting line for who ends up with the most career Win Shares. Keegan is well behind right now, but he might be the smart bet to win.
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
That is crazy.
Caccia
Starter
In the last 13 games, since Doug Christie was named interim head coach, Keegan has averaged 6.2 rebounds per game, second on the team. That includes 2.0 offensive rebounds, many of which have been in the fourth quarter.
And has anyone noticed that he has been dunking the ball a lot lately, with authority? Mostly they have been on drives to the basket or fast breaks.
And has anyone noticed that he has been dunking the ball a lot lately, with authority? Mostly they have been on drives to the basket or fast breaks.
Joshyjosh31
Starter
Cause he’s healthy nothing to do with Christie a coaching change doesn’t make someone dunk more
iowamcnabb
Hall of Famer
this guy has been making the rounds because he has a new book out. He works with a bunch of the top players in game including Giannis and Tatum. He also works with lower level guys like Trey Murphy who has taken a huge leap this year. This guy is a bit full of himself but he is known as a great motivator and truth teller. I’d like to see Keegan work with a player development coach outside of the team this summer. He has played with the select team and worked with Herb Jones now I’d like to see him branch out even more. He doesn’t have baby sitting duties anymore and won’t be able to lean on Fox to improve. The dude has it in him, it’s all about the belief and trusting the work. He could have an expanded role next year if traded are made for This Drew guy says it’s mostly mental with guys and I believe it
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
The other thing is teams at some point have to play to a players strengths. This franchise has a noted history of mischaracterizing players. Say what you will about Bagley, if they saw Amare light instead of Giannis he's putting up 20 and 10 from day 1 as a pick and roll big. Keegan really isn't missing much of anything, it's just that he really isn't great at anything either. The only lack is obviously the handles and those can improve, but they might have already. If Buddy can improve his handles and playmaking like he did around 25-26 years of age anything's possible, the thing is he showed glimpses of those kinds of handles in college. Sometimes it takes a few years for things to translate. I remember watching Andrew Bogut for the first few seasons of his NBA career and wondered where the shotblocking went but it eventually came.
Jdbraver137
Bench
Keegan needs to up his game offensively. He is so talented he just has to believe in himself.
Agreed. I think currently he is just too passive. I think Fox's departure could encourage him to be more aggressive, rather than defer to big brother Foxy. He needs a little more aggression in his play as he has all the talent and physical tools to be elite. He just has to develop between the ears and in the chest. This is a guy who could have benefited immensely from Mamba mentality/training (rip)
coolhandluke
Starter
iowamcnabb
Hall of Famer
Oh Dang!
