Jamal Murray overrated?

[FartinLuther7]

Being a Nuggets fan, I've watched pretty much all of Jamal's playoff games and lots of his regular season games throughout the years. I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of his career and who he is as a player.

Jamal is one of the best 2nd options in the league as a scorer. And his game fits really well with Jokic who's a facilitator by nature. Over the last three years he's averaged 20.8 ppg on 47% fg, and 41% from 3. These are very very good numbers. And Jamal is a very good player. But I think he gets overrated based on 3 playoff series. He had several great bubble series, and most notably, last year in the WCF he had an all time great series averaging 32ppg on 53%.

Again these are great post-season performances. But.... Murray has benefited so much from playing with Jokic. Murray is a scorer who's constantly searching for his own shot. He's not a good decision maker, and when jokic isn't on the court and Murray is allowed free rein this is glaring. In college he had more turnovers than assists, and while this has gotten better he's still not a natural playmaker, or someone you can trust to get a good shot for the team during an important possession. He makes up for this with his shot making but he still makes some of the worst decisions I've ever seen. The amount of times he's dribbled the shot clock away, only to take a terrible contested shot is mind blowing. He completely disrupts their offense at times, and when he's not shooting the ball well he can be a net negative.

If you take away his WCF last year he's averaged 23 ppg on 45% shooting. Still very good numbers but nothing out of this world. Lots of Nuggets fans think he's a top 20 player and can literally do no wrong. He's a weird player to rank because he's had such great post season performances. But when you look at some advanced stats he's their third most valuable player behind Aaron Gordon. And this honestly tracks with the eye tests of watching games. I still think Murray is better than Gordon but when deciding who's more valuable, I think it's a lot closer between these two than a lot of people think.

VORP has Murray at #35 in the league and I think this a pretty accurate overall ranking. I think he's close to a top 5 second option with guys like Maxey, PG, Kat, and Brown but definitely behind the 1a guys like Booker, Dame, LeBron/AD etc. But the only reason I would even have him this high is because of playoff performance. If Jamal had to carry a team, without Jokic it would kill his efficiency and make him a much less effective player.

Just my thoughts. Curious where non-nuggets fans would rank Jamal? I know this isn't a comparison so sorry if I broke posting rules.

[Peregrine01]

I've been skeptical about Murray as an all-star level player since the Nuggets seriously emerged as threats. Nothing in his skillset screams to me as a consistent all-star level guard. When his shot is on he certainly looks like one but when it's off his play can be alarmingly bad. He tends to be evaluated almost solely on some great playoff performances (2020 and the Wolves/Lakers series in 2023) but he's also had some awful performance in the playoffs (2019 and 2024). When looking at his playoff resume as a whole, he's a 24 PP75 scorer on 57% TS efficiency which is decent but not indicative of the “playoff riser” rep that he has. and like you said, he's not a natural playmaker though he's made strides since is Kentucky days.

[Special_Puppy]

Depends entirely if you think that Playoff Murray is a real of fake thing

[Laimbeer]

Every starter on the team is overrated because of Jokic.

[Fat]

No

[cpower]

how is he overrated? he basically made you a champion last year putting up 26 ppg on 59%TS and dominated Lebron/AD. He is a solid 2nd option, when he is healthy

[homecourtloss]

No

[Mos_Heat]

No

He's a tiny better player than Kyrie, who was a solid #2

[Peregrine01]

He's an utterly confounding player who can look like an All-NBA guard in some moments and then play so awfully that it hurts his team the next. His playoffs this year were pretty bad outside of some excellent moments that were few and far between.

[Cavsfansince84]

Truthfully, I'd say he's still a bit underrated because there have been so much talk about him being overrated and all of that this year but if the goal is to win a title then guys who generally elevate their play and are capable of putting up 25/6/7 as a pg/sg on very good efficiency on even a semi consistent basis(much less an entire run like he did last season) are very rare. Now granted, he does benefit from playing with Jokic who can make his life easier and run the offense to some degree but just in this playoffs he hit two game winners and didn't really let them down in this series loss. Den should have found a way to win it. Gordon and Porter combined for 11 pts.

[Alatan]

If his shot isnt falling he is a tank commander of the highest tier. And it happens ALOT. Fortunately Denver had his hot streak at the best moment so they made out with a ring from his terrible contract but now they are stuck with his chucking ass till the end of time.

[JimmyFromNz]

Overrated depends on what time of year it is.

The post Lakers series reaction was over the top for a guy who simply wasn't very good through out it, and clear 'work ons' in his all round game (beyond being a elite shot maker with a habit of very hot and cold streaks) became apparent.

However, amongst injuries the other reason he hasn't been named an all star is that there have simply been players better than him at his position and the consistency in his output remains borderline for a 'star player'.

So I'd suggest on the whole he's been rated about right.

[TheGOATRises007]

I mean he was pretty terrible the entire playoff run.

But he was amazing in prior playoff runs.

And his RS level isn't as good as his excellent playoff runs, but not as bad as this current playoff run.

He's a good player, but there have been been better #2 options.

[Peregrine01]

Truthfully, I'd say he's still a bit underrated because there have been so much talk about him being overrated and all of that this year but if the goal is to win a title then guys who generally elevate their play and are capable of putting up 25/6/7 as a pg/sg on very good efficiency on even a semi consistent basis(much less an entire run like he did last season) are very rare. Now granted, he does benefit from playing with Jokic who can make his life easier and run the offense to some degree but just in this playoffs he hit two game winners and didn't really let them down in this series loss. Den should have found a way to win it. Gordon and Porter combined for 11 pts.

He has great synergy with Jokic but without him, things just look really hard for him. He doesn't have great quickness so he depends on the screening action with Jokic to free himself into the lane or for his pull-up. Lack of explosiveness or quickness is a big weakness for an on-ball guard and we saw how much he struggled to get the offense going without Jokic - which is why Jokic had to play virtually the entire game today.

[ChartFiction]

Denver looked very mediocre when Murray went down and missed November. They were barely above a .500 team in that stretch. When he came back, they finished with their most successful season yet.

Even in the previous 2023 season, when Murray was not playing, Denver was barely above .500.

I'll also say, at least during November this season when I was watching, when Murray went down it looked like Jokic tried to be more aggressive to compensate. But it looked uncomfortable. So I believe Murray also plays a role in making the game comfortable for Jokic. Jokic looks like he prefers playing passively choosing optimal spots. The two-man game with Jokic and Murray is a large part of how Denver creates opportunities.

As far as 2nd options, I think his impact is clear in both the numbers without him as well as how involved he is in Denver offense.

But I do think you might have to entertain trading him. Other teams are only getting better and this current Nuggets team has already peaked.

[Jaivl]

Judging by the recent discourse, he's underrated, if anything.

[70sFan]

He is what he is - an excellent 2nd option but not a superstar. Just like we shouldn't have overreacted last year, we shouldn't now either.

[OhayoKD]

Every starter on the team is overrated because of Jokic.

And jokic is overrated because every starter on the team so

[One_and_Done]

Eh. He had a mediocre playoffs by his standards, but Kobe has had plenty of series as bad. 20-6-4 on 47 TS% with a minor injury hampering him is still fine when you consider the quality of defense he faced. He'll bounce back and be an all-star next year probably.

[Peregrine01]

He is what he is - an excellent 2nd option but not a superstar. Just like we shouldn't have overreacted last year, we shouldn't now either.

Wonder where you’d place him on a list of guards?