Kevin Murphy, mercenary for hire in the D-League

A minor league for any professional sport can be a desolate place. Often players are inexperienced and trying to gain traction as a pro, but every year a handful of NBA-ready guys dominate in the shadows of the NBA’s version; the D-League. This year, Kevin Murphy is that player.

Dominate is one of those subjective words conjuring up an array of outcomes when used to describe a player, game or team. Murphy isn’t the best scorer in the league. He’s not the most explosive leaper. He isn’t a lock down defender. But he is dominant in his area of expertise, which is the long ball, and the NBA (and chicks, of course) dig the long ball.

Murphy is a 26-year-old journeyman. He was drafted no. 47 overall in the 2012 NBA Draft by the Utah Jazz, but was traded after his rookie season and subsequently cut by the Golden State Warriors. Since then he’s played n France, China, Japan and the D-League on multiple occasions. Now a seasoned veteran, Murphy has reinvigorated his game by building on a previous skill and entering the elite in terms of hitting 3-pointers.

This season Murphy is averaging 23.3 points and 5.7 rebounds as the starting shooting guard for the Grand Rapids Drive, the Detroit Pistons’ affiliate. Murphy plays alongside former NBA players Ray McCallum and Jordan Crawford and the three of them form a deadly trio on the perimeter. The 6-foot-6 wing has already hit a career best 70 3-pointers (3.3 per game) through his first 21 games with Grand Rapids and he’s deadly at 41.4 percent.

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So far this season there are only five players with at least 10 games played, scoring at least 20 points per game and shooting at least 41 percent from 3-point range. Murphy, Anthony Brown, Jordan Crawford, Malachi Richardson (Sacramento Kings’ assignee) and Pierre Jackson. Three of those five have played NBA minutes this season, but Murphy separates himself from the field by not needing the ball in his hands to be effective.

Murphy is a catch-and-shoot specialist with 90.4 percent of his 3-point makes being assisted this season. He’s also shown an affinity for knocking down the above the break 3-pointer as opposed to the corner 3. This is mostly due to the flow of the offense for Grand Rapids as Murphy is constantly on the move, searching for any opening to pull the trigger or attack the paint.

As you can see above he’s especially deadly from the wings, due mostly to the Drive having him come off screens to hit 3s. Watch as Murphy uses this set to free himself for the 3.

Murphy does have an exaggerated dip in his shooting motion, bringing the ball down to his waist before launching it from distance. While this causes his catch-and-release to be slower than it should be, he’s still able to get his shot off very quickly.

Here’s another instance with Murphy using a high screen by McCallum and when he notices his man goes under the screen, he quickly pops out and nails the long range bomb.

This time down Murphy uses three screens along the baseline and even though it doesn’t fully free him, his quick catch-and-shoot allows him to hit the 3.

This next move shows how cerebral Murphy is as he sets his man up with an ideal angle to run off the screen, creating a wide open 3-pointer.

Hitting shots like these are important for shooters in the D-League, because these are the exact types of shots NBA teams need them to make in limited minutes off the bench.

Murphy always had an uncanny knack for scoring, but now with the added consistency from distance, he may finally earn his second chance in the NBA. Over the last two seasons there were two call ups who scored at least 20 points per game while shooting 41+ percent from 3; Seth Curry and Sean Kilpatrick. Both are playing rotational minutes for their teams and Murphy could be next in line, though his game is quite different from each of theirs.

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There are currently five NBA teams with bench units shooting sub 33 percent from distance, per Hoops Stats — Detroit Pistons (30.3), Oklahoma City Thunder (31.1), Chicago Bulls (31.4), Orlando Magic (31.7) and Washington Wizards (32.4). Two of those teams, Chicago and Orlando, have roster openings and while Murphy isn’t a game changer, he can be a viable rotational specialist off the bench with the right opportunity.