Three key areas of improvement for Denver Nuggets rising star Jamal Murray
Off-ball offense
Becoming an elite offensive player off of the ball is going to be a huge key for Jamal Murray, as it will be for any player who will play a majority of their high-leverage minutes next to Nikola Jokic. Thankfully for Denver Nuggets head coach Mike Malone and co., Murray is already quite talented in this department, it’s just that he has room for improvement that could really make Denver even tougher to guard.
Here are Jamal Murray’s catch-and-shoot numbers per NBA.com the past two seasons:
2017-18: 41.3 percent on 4.3 catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts per game
2018-19: 39.3 percent on 2.7 catch-and-shoot 3-point attempts per game
Murray doesn’t spend a lot of his time on the floor with Monte Morris, Will Barton or any other player that can be used in a primary ball-handling role, but he still could be more aggressive when it comes to relocating and looking for open shots off the catch, especially 3-point looks.
Despite Murray’s usage rate and raw shot attempts increasing, his 3-point total dropped by 12 attempts. It could be that the offensive slippage of a player like Barton had a greater effect on Murray’s game than we realize.
Barton saw his effective field goal percentage drop from 52.8 percent in 2018 to 47.5 percent over the 2019 season, while playing 770 total minutes with Murray on the season. With even a slight bounce-back to the mean in Barton’s effectiveness, Murray would have more room to maneuver.
The general point here is that with one of Denver’s primary offensive initiators taking a step back, Murray had to shoulder a bigger load on offense which meant him taking more shots in the short midrange area. Regardless of if Barton returns to prior form, Murray needs to eliminate a large chunk of those midrange shots even if it means taking 3-pointers earlier in the shot clock.
Even when teams are trying desperately trying to run Murray off the 3-point line, he has to get better at executing a sidestep into his motion rather than settling for the one-dribble pull-up.
Murray was absolutely lights out on corner 3-point shots, hitting them at a ridiculous 52 percent clip in the 2018-19 season per Cleaning the Glass ($). He was a less impressive 36 percent on non-corner 3s and becoming a better shooter from the top of the arc would definitely make Murray an even greater threat in transition.
At just 21-years old, Jamal Murray is a big-time scorer who just turned in a career-high assist-to-turnover ratio with a 24 percent usage rate. He is already very good but the five-year, $170 million contract extension from the Nuggets means that Murray needs to be more than very good.
And the next step towards becoming an elite point guard is trying to develop a better feel for the game. Murray shot 40.5 percent on 3-point shots taken in the average shot clock range but he was a much more efficient 43.9 percent on 3-pointers early in the shot clock.
These numbers are not to suggest that Murray should go 3-point wild next season but he certainly would be helping the Denver offense if he replaced a good 5-to-10 percent of those midrange attempts with 3-point shots, even better if it comes as a result of some early offense actions. Murray shot 4.9 3-point attempts per game in losses and 5.9 attempts from 3-point range in wins.
Murray is good mirange scorer but when he is operating with the “Morey-ball” mindset of nothing but layups, free throws, and 3-pointers, he is at his easily at his most lethal as an offensive weapon.