Why is everyone forgetting about Jamal Murray?

A quick glance at the box score might imply that Jamal Murray’s development has stagnated. It hasn’t and he’s on the verge of All-Star level production.

Expectations and perceptions are tricky concepts to navigate for young players. They enter the NBA advertised with certain strengths and weaknesses, typically building upon those strengths or fortifying those weaknesses to carve out their professional niche. If growth veers down a different path, particularly when it’s not easily discernible through box-score browsing, certain players are considered stagnant or no longer ascending. Like Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray, who’s made notable strides in key areas over the duration of his career, but is often neglected in discussions of youthful perimeter talent.

Following a rookie campaign in which he labored through a sports hernia injury for the entirety of the year, Murray found footing as a sophomore, averaging 16.7 points on 57.6 percent true shooting (.451/.378/.905 split). He’d elevated his scoring average by 5.8 points per game and at 21 years old, appeared the part of a devastating scorer for Denver in the near future.

Two-plus years later, however, most are probably still waiting to inaugurate Murray as one of the league’s best scoring guards. He’s only averaged 1.7 more points per 100 possessions over the past two seasons than he did in 2017-18, his true shooting has fallen from 57.6 percent to 54.7 percent (cumulative between 2018-19 and 2019-20) and he’s yet to emerge as a high-level bomber, converting 35.8 percent of his 3s (37.8 percent in 2017-18).

Where is Jamal Murray’s game developing?

The latter two marks require context to (partially) explain away — more on them later — and while he’s not quite become the perimeter creator the Nuggets require, he’s blossoming into a tremendous complementary guard, thanks to substantial development in other areas, as well as the sustained utilization of previous standout skills. At just 23 years old, he should still be an All-Star down the road.

One factor in Murray’s true shooting decline is bearing an increased on-ball burden, which has paved the way for maturation as a pull-up shooter, arguably the most important broad offensive skill for any guard to wield. In his rookie season, off-the-dribble jumpers composed 35.8 percent of his half-court possessions and he generated 0.799 points per possession (45th percentile) on 219 attempts. This season, off-the-dribble jumpers composed 47 percent of his half-court possessions and he generated 0.958 points per possession (70th percentile) on 356 attempts. Each of the past two seasons, he’s finished among the top 15 in off-the-dribble volume.

A chart diagramming this year-to-year growth emphasizes the strides he’s enjoyed and helps illustrate why he hasn’t experienced a leap in true shooting percentage. He’s swapped out higher-efficiency catch-and-shoot opportunities for challenging, more valuable self-created looks — although, a decline in effectiveness of the former is also responsible for his downturn.

Murray has sharpened his pick-and-roll craft, developed a nifty space-creating step-back and touts a tough shot-making gene, all of which allow him to act as Denver’s premier shot-creator in the backcourt (Will Barton also fills a sizable role here). He weaponizes a notably refined and deceptive handle to enact advantages and, usually, isn’t bashful about hoisting difficult shots.

His path to becoming a pull-up virtuoso is contingent on redirecting some of his ambitious tendencies. While he’s unafraid to trigger contested shots — and has often found success — they largely come from mid-range. He’s too shy beyond the arc and needs to increase his 3-point rate. He’s never launched more than three pull-up long balls per game in any season and sits 23rd in volume this year, despite ranking 16th in total pull-up volume (2s and 3s combined). Conversely, he’s taken at least five pull-up 2-pointers per game each of the last two seasons.

In most ball-screen action, his first instinct is either to feed Nikola Jokic on the roll/pop or get to his spots inside the arc. If he were more willing to quickly fire from deep off of the pick — a la Damian Lillard — that adjustment would likely benefit his pull-up shooting numbers and the manner in which he bends defenses with his off-the-bounce game, while also implementing some variance to his pick-and-roll approach. It must be noted, however, that Murray, at this juncture, is not a prolific 3-point shooter off the bounce.

He’s knocked down 32.1 percent (218 of 680) of his career attempts and over the last two years, he’s converted 33.2 percent (75 of 226) of them. Contrast that with his 43.6 percent success rate on pull-up 2-pointers (44.7 percent since 2018-19) and it’s apparent why he feels more at home in the mid-range.

But 3s are worth 1.5 times more than 2s. In a vacuum, Murray would have to shoot 48.2 percent from inside the arc to mirror his 32.1 percent 3-point clip and justify the heavy volume. Of course, there is intangible value to being a mid0range threat and completely eliminating that portion of his shot profile isn’t prudent. Instead, Murray would be wise to simply trim down the frequency in favor of higher-outcome decisions by upping his 3-point rate from .350, where it’s hovered around the last two seasons, to roughly .500. In essence, his avenue to ascending the league’s pull-up hierarchy boils down to letting it fly more regularly beyond the arc, which would improve his efficiency, Denver’s floor-spacing and the way he strains defenders with his shooting.

Similar to the incremental shooting improvement, his playmaking seems to have burgeoned the last two years. During his first and second season, Murray was too conservative and erraticas a passer. He relied heavily on the Jokic safety valve in pick-and-rolls, was late spotting opportunities, which spurred him to cause turnovers by forcing passes, and struggled to execute reads across the court or through traffic. If the initial option was not available, he’d extinguish his dribble or reset the offense, sometimes causing possessions to stall out. Amid his fourth year, he maintains a live dribble regularly and populates the teeth of the defense more often to capitalize upon his evolution.

A lack of proactivity and balancing scoring with passing remain issues as well. But he’s grown more daring, improved his off-hand repertoire, leverages his pull-up gravity and is far better as a live dribble passer nowadays. His chemistry with Jokic continues to grow and Murray is impressively capable of threading pinpoint pocket passes through narrow openings. If Jokic floats beyond the arc, Murray promptly transitions from dribble to pass. He identifies cutters or divers to the rim and slings dimes inside; the occasional skip pass to a shooter manifests.

Murray still settles for contested jumpers instead of spotting semi-complex reads, axes his live dribble at times and his general decision-making is inconsistent. He’s not a manipulative playmaker at this stage and very well may never be (it’s a hard skill to develop). But he’s notched legitimate strides in recent years and is better suited to carry the mantle of lead perimeter creator for Denver than he was two seasons ago.

Yet playing alongside Jokic mandates extended stretches without commandeering the offense. Murray has anchored himself among the premier non-Stephen Curry off-ball guards in the NBA and proven to be a highly complementary associate for Jokic. Whether it be on- or off-ball screening, relocating to openings around the arc to produce looks for himself or teammates, or darting to the rim via timely cuts, the 23-year-old forms a symbiotic relationship with his All-Star big man that benefits the entire roster.

He serves as the screener in pick-and-rolls, sets flex screens to simplify post-ups for Jokic and Paul Millsap and can be deployed in screen-the-screener actions designed to spring him open for 3s. He traverses screens to create separation from his defender, which he then parlays into offensive profits. He simplifies passing outlets by filling to the proper spots and seizing advantage of defensive faux pas. Murray’s off-ball exploits are wide-ranging and help amplify the Nuggets’ motion-based offense constructed around its franchise superstar.

His current and long-term appeal is as a scalable, complementary guard whose expanding on-ball equity enables him to accent any high-usage superstar. The more duties one player can perform offensively, the fewer unsuitable responsibilities others are bestowed. Murray’s varying routes to success in Denver help illuminate the value of his malleability.

Right now, he’d top out as the third or fourth-best player on a title contender — I don’t consider Denver to be in that tier yet. In three or so years, though, when he’s entering his prime, a prime I expect to feature some All-Star appearances, he’ll be exactly the type of guard you want to pair with the bedrock of any team. Every season, he shifts closer toward fulfilling the valuable archetype of a versatile secondary creator, a role he embodies well now, but hasn’t maximized, which is fine and expected because he’s only 23, still years away from his peak

Despite some perceived stagnation, Murray has polished his passing, pull-up shooting and functional ball-handling in recent years. Those subtle improvements, largely identified through film or in-depth statistics, have made him one of the more well-rounded offensive guards since his breakout 2017-18 campaign. Since then, he’s ranked 22nd in Offensive Player Impact Plus-Minus (plus-2.68) and 59th overall in PIPM (plus-1.91). Some of that is likely by virtue of spending more than 75 percent of his minutes next to Jokic, who simplifies everything offensively for those around him. But this is a two-way partnership and Murray’s talents augment Jokic’s skill set, permitting both dudes to thrive.

Perhaps a genuine star surfaces on the trade market and Murray is shipped off in the franchise’s pursuit to immediately elevate from very good to great with Jokic, a top-10 player, at the helm. In the interim, Murray is on his way to bridging the gap between above-average starter and star, all while increasingly providing Denver with necessary perimeter creation in a supplementary fashion for its Serbian wunderkind.