Dejounte Murray could be the Spurs next homegrown star

The San Antonio Spurs have a long and storied history of developing homegrown stars. Here’s an idea of just how long and storied said long and storied history is: it’s been 7,829 days since the Spurs last played a game without any of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili on their roster. It’s been even longer — 10,750 days — since they last played a game without any of those players or David Robinson on their roster. That’s going all the way back to 1989, by the way. More than half the players on the Spurs’ 2018-19 roster weren’t even born yet the last time the franchise played a game without any of those homegrown stars.

Of course, that’ll all change in just a few weeks. Duncan’s entering his third season of retirement. Ginobili hung up his spurs for good a few weeks ago. Parker signed with the Hornets to play under former San Antonio assistant James Borrego. And Kawhi Leonard was traded to the Raptors after a year-plus-long battle over his injury rehabilitation that resulted in the Spurs’ dealing with internal chaos for seemingly the first time during the Gregg Popovich era.

With all those luminaries no longer around, the Spurs not only don’t have an outright superstar on the team this coming season; but the team’s two ostensible “star” players are both imports from other franchises. LaMarcus Aldridge was acquired in free agency and DeMar DeRozan was the core piece in the recent Leonard deal.

At this point, there’s a widespread expectation that Popovich will lead the Spurs for these next two seasons — notably, the final two guaranteed years on the deals for both Aldridge and DeRozan — and coach the United States Men’s National Team in 2020 before riding off into the sunset. That means the Spurs have just two years to find the next, last homegrown star of the Popovich era — the player who will be the bridge to the next stage of Spurs basketball.

The most likely player to fill that role is third-year guard Dejounte Murray.

That might seem like a strange thing to say about a player with 56 starts to his name and career averages of just 6.6 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 2.3 assists per game, but in just two seasons Murray has already proven that he is capable of making a star-level impact on one end of the floor. That’s more than any other Spurs draftee still on the roster has proven.

Murray’s combination of size (6-foot-5), length (6-foot-10 wingspan), strength, and athleticism lends itself well to defending both backcourt positions, which he did with aplomb last season. And it helps that he simply never stops working.

Murray darted into passing lanes with ease last year, deflecting 3.5 passes per 36 minutes — 16th-most among the 311 players league-wide who averaged 20-plus minutes per game, per Second Spectrum’s player tracking data on NBA.com. He never stopped hustling for the ball, recovering 2.1 loose balls per 36 minutes — the single highest figure among that same group of players. He used his length and agility to stay with his man off the dribble and get a hand in the way of shots, challenging 10.4 shots per 36 minutes — fourth-most among guards who averaged 20 minutes a night. His defensive rebound rate of 22.4 percent was the third-highest for any point guard in the history of the NBA. Nobody in the entire league moved faster on the defensive side of the floor than Murray, who was scooting around at an average of 4.46 miles per hour, according to Second Spectrum. He also led all point guards in ESPN’s Defensive Real Plus-Minus and finished ninth among all players in the same metric, earning himself a Second Team All-Defense nod for his efforts.

His performance had a strong positive effect on the Spurs’ defense, which ended the season ranked fourth best in the NBA. San Antonio allowed 7.8 fewer points per 100 possessions with Murray on the floor than on the bench, per NBA.com, and was significantly better across the board in each of the four factors when he was in the game.

There’s no real reason to expect that Murray’s defense will drop off any time soon. He’s only going to get stronger and smarter as he moves into the prime of his career over the next few seasons, and his combination of size, length, and athleticism will always allow him to cause problems for opposing ball-handlers, while also providing the ability to paper over his own mistakes. With the league trending more and more toward players who have the ability to switch across multiple positions and play up or down a slot, Murray’s height is even more of a defensive asset than it once might have been. Being able to slide onto bigger wings and even forwards and not get bowled over is a must-have skill for guards these days, and Murray’s already got it at age-22. As he plays more and more minutes and exerts his influence over a greater amount of floor-time, his defensive impact should only grow.

The questions with Murray come on the other side of the floor — and, well, that’s not great.

During his first run of extended action last season, Murray converted only 51.6 percent of his layups, a considerably below-average figure. Worse yet, he connected on just 36.1 percent of his jump-shots, and he was for the most part far too reluctant to shoot from beyond 15 feet. Just 94 of his 609 shot attempts came from 16 feet out or farther, per NBA.com, a preposterously low number for a guard. He took only 34 3-pointers in 1,743 minutes. Andre Roberson hoisted 37 3s in 704 fewer minutes. Kawhi Leonard played only 201 minutes across nine games and still took 35.

Murray’s near total lack of scoring ability rendered him fairly impotent against the Warriors during the Spurs’ first-round playoff loss. Popovich limited him to 19.2 minutes per game in the series and he went two of the five games without even recording an assist.

He can frustrated at times with a tendency toward record-scratching — catching the ball on the perimeter and, in a situation where an otherwise competent offensive player would simply shoot the ball, instead putting it on the floor a time or two, either allowing or outright inviting the defense to recover, and in effect neutering the potential scoring opportunity. On a team like San Antonio that prides itself on using ball and player movement to create the best possible shot on any given possession, scratching the record can undermine the entire system.

But Murray is not a player entirely devoid of offensive merit. His size affords him the ability to see passing lanes other point guards can’t — provided he’s aggressive enough off the bounce to open them up in the first place, which he was often enough last season. Murray averaged 8.2 drives per game in 21.2 minutes a night, per NBA.com, which works out to around 13.7 per 36 minutes. That’s more than Damian Lillard, for example. But because Murray’s no real threat to pull up off the dribble, his shots off the drive were for the most part too hotly contested for him to be an effective finisher on his way to the hole.

But Murray’s size and the defensive flexibility it affords him allows Popovich to play him with almost any kind of backcourt partner. The Murray — Patty Mills backcourt was among San Antonio’s most effective two-man combinations last season, outscoring opponents by 7.1 points per 100 possessions across 773 minutes. Murray had similar numbers with both Bryn Forbes (plus-10.2 in 620 minutes) and Manu Ginobili (plus-8.2 in 315 minutes) as well. It’s not difficult to envision a backcourt of Murray and 2018 first-round pick Lonnie Walker IV working extremely well, with the duo sharing ball-handling duties while hounding opposing guards up and down the floor. It’s even plausible that the Spurs could play Murray as part of three-guard groups — as they did on occasion last season, the better to get even more ball-handling and shooting on the floor around their ace defender who happens to cramp their offensive style when he’s not at his most aggressive.

If he ever ratchets up the forcefulness off the bounce, new possibilities will open up for Murray. Again, he’s on the taller side for a lead ball-handler at 6-foot-5, and he’s flashed the ability to make some advanced passes when they’re actually open. Too often they never materialize because he doesn’t make himself a threat, but a concerted effort to push the ball up the floor would thrust them wide open on the break, and if he begins seeing the lanes more often, perhaps he’ll become more adventurous with his passing in the half-court. Developing a passable jumper is important for any perimeter player, but even those without one can have success if they can turn themselves into top-flight drivers. Murray has the size and athleticism to become that type of player, but he needs to harness it to unleash the full breadth of his skill. Whether or not he does could be the determining factor in whether he’s merely a defensive specialist or the Popovich-era Spurs’ last homegrown stud.

Illustrations for this article were provided by Elliot Gerard. Check out the rest of the Stepmoji series here.