McNair has top hopes for Murray later remarkable rookie season at the beginning seemed on NBC Sports activities Bay Branch
Monte McNair is aware of if the Kings wish to remove the upcoming step as a significant Western Convention contender, Keegan Murray must produce a bounce in Day 2.
Talking with NBC Sports activities California’s Kyle Draper at the fresh episode of “Kings Central: Offseason Review,” Sacramento’s normal supervisor defined why the group must “develop internally” to bring to stake its declare as some of the Western Convention’s powerhouses.
And all of it begins with Murray.
“Obviously Keegan, top-five pick, great rookie year,” McNair instructed Draper. “We know his growth is not linear, it’s not always going to be upward. Who knows? There might be some sort of slump or mini-slump that he’s going to fight through. Like I said, we saw that in the playoffs, he maybe didn’t have the best games early on in that series, he figured it out.”
Despite the fact that Murray does progress thru classes of inefficiency or will get beaten, McNair is aware of probably the most noteceable factor is the 22-year-old is finding out to be a greater participant.
“So all we want is eventually that that arrow is pointing upward and that he’s continuing to work because the sky’s the limit for him and I think we’ve seen that in so many different areas, as I mentioned dating back to his college and his first year-plus here in the pros,” McNair stated. “And the more he can do for us on the court, the better it’s going to be for us.”
McNair and the residue of the Kings group had been inspired by way of the glimpses they noticed in Murray’s rookie season and his appearances in summer season league, particularly later Murray used to be challenged by way of mentor Mike Brown to raise his recreation.
“And so coach Brown challenged Keegan and said ‘I want you to grow your game this summer and what they want you to do is play a couple games in summer league, where you could be the guy and I want you to go in transition and dunk on somebody,’ ” McNair recalled. ” ‘I want you to create off the dribble, I want you to take the end of the shot clock shots.’
“And Keegan being Keegan, he simply comes out and drops 70+ in two video games and says, ‘Yeah mentor, I were given that.’ “
As a result of his demeanor and magnificence of play games, Murray has garnered comparisons to Los Angeles Clippers celebrity Kawhi Leonard. Paul George, Leonard’s teammate, holds Murray’s 3-point taking pictures in top regard as smartly, putting him in his non-public top-five NBA shooters.
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Next averaging 12.2 issues, 4.6 rebounds and 1.2 assists in conjunction with breaking the document for many 3-pointers made by way of a rookie, the one course for Murray’s construction is upward.
And McNair hopes Murray can remove the upcoming step, making an allowance for Sacramento’s month playoff hopes are depending on it.
