The Case Against Jamal Murray as a top-10 draft pick

The Jamal Murray hype has been building the last couple weeks. After reportedly hitting 79 of 100 threes in his Celtics workout and Coach Calipari saying he deserved to be the No. 1 pick a lot of draft discussion has centered around the Kentucky guard. He’s seen as a consensus top-10 pick, and even as the best option for the Celtics at No. 3 by many draftniks. However, there are reasons to believe he shouldn’t be the surefire lottery pick everyone has him pegged as.

My biggest concerns with Murray center around his athleticism, which hurts him on both ends of the court, but particularly the defensive side of things. Murray’s athleticism is somewhat tough to judge. He’s extremely aggressive attacking the rim, which allows him to produce some highlight reel plays like this. Despite his occasionally impressive bounce, I generally grade Murray as a very below-average athlete for an NBA guard. When he gets a head of steam he can get off the ground, but his quick-twitch burst from triple threat or a defensive stance is very poor.

His combination of below-average quickness and tweener PG/SG size is going to make it difficult for Murray to find someone to guard at the NBA level. Here against a bigger guard like Damion Lee he doesn’t have the strides to keep up or the strength to cut him off and he’s forced to foul. Thanks to Tobias-Go-To-Guys great Youtube channel for all the clips.

You can’t put him on a smaller player either because he just doesn’t have the quickness to keep up.

If you watched Kentucky games this year, you would’ve noticed Murray getting attacked by opposing guards basically whenever possible. As the year wore on he improved at staying low in his stance and working hard off the ball, but his lack of raw tools on the defensive end continued to allow him to get exposed. He has a relatively strong frame for his size, yet still struggles to get over ball screens quickly due to a lack of slippery quickness. Instead, he often takes wide angles that leave him too far behind the ball handler.

Murray wasn’t just an average NCAA defender who will have questions at the next level. He was a bad college defender, and bad college defenders usually end up as atrocious NBA defenders. As an off-ball defender, he wasn’t much better either. He struggled to fight through off-ball screens, and he doesn’t have the type of length or athleticism to make plays on the defensive end. His lowly 1.6 percent steal rate and 0.9 percent block rate are both evidence of his lack of athleticism.

It is worth noting that by the end of the year Murray tried hard and even displayed decent off-ball defensive instincts. With consistent effort and improvement in awareness, Murray should be able to reach acceptable levels of bad for an NBA 2-guard. Still, I don’t think he will ever be comfortable matching up against opposing point guards, and it will be difficult to even reach J.J. Redick levels of mediocrity on the defensive end. He’s probably going to be a negative defender at the NBA level, and possibly so bad that he can get attacked off the floor in a playoff series type setting.

My primary concerns with Murray are defensive, but I also have my questions about his offense at the NBA level. The first myth to dispel about Murray is that he can be a point guard in the NBA. I already explained why he can’t guard NBA PG’s, but he’s not fit to run an NBA offense either. Kentucky started out the season letting Murray create in a mostly on-ball role through dribble-drive iso’s and pick-and-roll. Not coincidentally, Kentucky wasn’t all that good at the start of the NCAA season. Only when coach Cal moved Murray to a more off-ball role and allowed him to run off baseline screens did Murray and the team blossom.

Some of Murray’s struggles creating offense can be attributed to Kentucky’s poorly spaced floor. Oftentimes, Tyler Ulis was the only other actual outside threat on the court when Murray would try and drive the lane. Nonetheless, Murray’s failings as an on-ball creator in contrast to Tyler Ulis’s success indicate why he’s not an NBA point guard or big time off-the-dribble creator. As a passer, he can make basic reads when he draws an extra defender, but he’s a score first player without much imagination in creating for others. His 0.95/1 A/TO ratio is poor for a wing player, let alone a point guard. The A/TO ratio oversells how bad he is as a passer because he tried to create more than most wings, but it does indicate his lack of point guard skills.

Murray’s inability to create offense off-the-dribble is partially due to lack of advanced vision, but also due to his same athletic concerns. He’s got a good handle and some nice change of pace moves but just doesn’t have the burst to consistently create space from defenders. Here, Murray has Vanderbilt big man Damian Jones switched onto him but doesn’t have the speed to find space to get a shot off over him.

This time against the type of athletic wing he’ll face every night at the NBA level his poor burst  prevents him from ever turning the corner.

Against NBA wings, Murray is going to be at a deficit in both size and quickness most nights. Undersized scorers like Lou Williams and C.J. McCollum (who Murray is often compared to) at least are able to create space due to a quickness advantage over bigger wings. Murray has the handle and feel to create some space, especially in conjunction with the threat of his outside shot, but I don’t see him being an efficient on-ball creator at the NBA level.

Using the danger his shooting presents will be the easiest way for Murray to create space in the NBA. Murray is an elite shooter, and his ability to fire quickly coming off screens is rare. If he can get defenders trailing him on off-ball screens he has the type of advanced moves to pump fake and make a play for himself or someone else attacking the lane. That is a very useful skill set, and I have little doubt Murray will be a good offensive player. My issue is with just how good some people seem to be projecting Murray’s offense.

Murray’s most frequent comparisons are probably McCollum and Brandon Roy, but his NBA role might be much more similar to J.J. Redick. Murray is certainly a more advanced handler than Redick, but he’s not quite as elite a shooter, and has a ways to go to be an even similar level defender.  Without the quickness of a guy like McCollum it is hard to expect him to play that role on the offensive end of the floor. Guys who project to be negative defenders and mostly off-ball guys on the offensive end simply aren’t conducive to winning basketball.

I believe Murray could turn himself into a very useful bench asset due to his offensive skill set if he can improve his defense and decision-making a little, but I don’t see very much starter on a good team upside in his profile. The combination of a good chance of being a net negative player and lacking all that high an upside makes Murray an unappealing lottery pick, and certainly someone I wouldn’t touch in the top-5 of any draft.