In case you missed it, Sacramento Kings forward Keegan Murray recorded a 41-point game during the California Classic Summer League.
Sacramento ended the game with a victory but Murray was the star of the show. He was 11-of-20 from the field and 13-of-15 from the free-throw line, adding four blocks during the process as well.
It was a masterful performance from Murray, who will not play for the Kings during the NBA Summer League tournament in Las Vegas. As such, we have all the data we are going to get from Murray against this level of competition.
But despite the small sample size of just two games, there is a lot we can learn from what we saw from Murray that would suggest a strong leap is coming before his sophomore campaign.
Keegan Murray scores 41 points in the @SacramentoKings California Classic win! pic.twitter.com/RYx2r4eRPb
— NBA (@NBA) July 6, 2023
For example: When including his passes, per Synergy, he finished 17.9 percent of his possessions as the ball handler in pick-and-roll sets. That was well above his rate (5.1 percent) during his first professional campaign.
This allowed some more on-ball creation opportunities for Murray, which is typically a great indicator of increased offensive usage to follow.
Also noteworthy: 45.8 percent of his jumpers were off the dribble and he was 7-for-11 (63.6 percent) during these opportunities. That is significantly more frequent than when he was a rookie (13.2 percent) and more efficient than his numbers last season (46.8 percent) as well.
But it wasn’t just his dribble jumper that was particularly effective.
He was fouled on 50.0 percent of his possessions when driving to the basket during the two exhibitions. For comparison, he was fouled on just 5.5 percent of his driving attempts as a rookie.
It is unsustainable to imagine a world in which Murray is fouled on half of his drives for the duration of an entire season. But even if he can get a few more trips to the free-throw line per game, that can at least mildly increase his overall scoring output as he continues his development.
While we shouldn’t overreact to a strong performance during NBA Summer League, Murray won MVP of the NBA 2K23 Summer League. The former Iowa standout went on to help lead Sacramento to the postseason and earned NBA All-Rookie First-Team honors.
