Over the final month of the NCAA season, Kentucky’s Canadian freshman Jamal Murray started climbing up draft boards. ESPN Insider Chad Ford has him going fourth (subscription required) to the Boston Celtics, while Hoops Hype has the combo guard going sixth to the Denver Nuggets.
Sunday afternoon, Murray showed why so many basketball aficionados are excited about his potential, knocking down a clutch three-pointer in overtime to put the Wildcats up six with under 15 seconds to play against Texas A&M. Not only was it a smooth step-back on the left side, but it was also just the third triple Murray had connected on all game, going 2-9 up to that point. Yet despite a mediocre day from the field, the Kitchener, Ontario native didn’t hesitate to the pull the trigger in crunch time.
And as the NCAA Men’s National Basketball Tournament – also known as March Madness – prepares to kick off, the Canadian has the opportunity to further improve his stock by out-playing the other potential lottery picks over the next couple of weeks.
Ben Simmons is going to be the first pick in the draft and nothing will change that, not even the fact that the Australian forward and the LSU Tigers failed to qualify for the tournament. He’s too talented to not go first and even though he didn’t blow people away in his lone NCAA campaign, he’ll be a much better pro and a perennial all-star within five years.
Brandon Ingram is probably a lock to go second because of his overall upside, but things can get interesting from there out.
Murray has already shown that he’s built for the big stage. Prior to delivering the coffin nail against the Aggies on Sunday, the freshman was Team Canada’s crunch time leader during the Pan-Am Games this summer, as an 18-year-old, and he thrived. In fact, Murray played so well that he earned himself a spot on squad that went to Mexico for the FIBA Americas Championship at the end of August and could have contributed, but school was starting in Lexington, so Murray couldn’t participate.
We haven’t seen that same kind of “ready for primetime” performance from projected lottery picks like Henry Ellenson, Jaylen Brown or Kris Dunn, all of whom land in the same vicinity as Murray in most mock drafts. Buddy Hield has proven himself in big games this season, but the Oklahoma senior doesn’t possess the same upside as his younger Canadian counterpart.
The knock on Murray is that he’s a tweener and not an elite athlete, everything else about his game makes talent evaluators drool and there are plenty of one-two hybrids that lack blazing speed and great hops that have excelled at the next level.
Hoops Hype lists his comp as Jeff Hornacek, which isn’t a sexy name, but the recently fired Phoenix Suns coach played 15 seasons, averaging 14 per game and shooting 40 percent from deep. In terms of current players, Murray strikes me as a C.J. McCollum type – a guy that can play both on and off the ball and is fearless when it comes to pulling the trigger, but doesn’t possess the kind of athleticism that makes him jump off the screen the way even a guy like Victor Oladipo does.
Right now, most GMs would probably take McCollum over Oladipo if they were starting a franchise, simply because the former’s scoring ability and stroke from deep trumps the latter’s all-around game and tantalizing upside. McCollum is more of a known commodity and the same can be said of Murray.
And if Murray and the Wildcats can make a run to the Sweet Sixteen and beyond while some of the other projected Top 10 picks stumble, don’t be surprised if the Canadian hits the draft with his stock climbing and his name penciled in as a Top 5 pick.
