SACRAMENTO – Keegan Murray’s NBA experience thus far has been quite the ride.
Selected by the Kings No. 4 overall in the 2022 NBA Draft, Murray entered a rookie season that set the bar high for what was to come thereafter. In Year 1, he set the NBA 3-point rookie record, was named to the 2023 NBA Jordan Rising Stars team and made the All-Rookie First Team. He also finished fifth in NBA Rookie of the Year voting.
This, on top of averaging 12.2 points on 45.3-percent shooting from the field and 41.1 percent from 3-point range, with 4.6 rebounds and 1.2 assists through 29.8 minutes in 80 games (78 starts), while helping lead Sacramento to its first playoff appearance in nearly two decades.
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SIGN UP HERE He averaged 15.2 points in his sophomore season and 12.4 in Year 3, respectively, but his 3-point shooting has taken a significant dip from his rookie year.
Part of that was due to him taking on a larger defensive role along his path to becoming an effective two-way player in the league. Some of the challenges during the 2024-25 season were due to the organizational inconsistencies the team faced.
The Kings parted ways with the only NBA coach Murray knew, Mike Brown, 31 games into the season. Brown was someone who pushed the young forward as if he were an NBA veteran. After Brown reached his 400th career win, Murray spoke about the impact the coach had on his young career.
“He's always pushing me,” Murray said on Nov. 13, 2023. “Even last year, he didn't treat me like a rookie. He treated me like a guy who's been in the league for five, six years. That's all I could have really asked for my rookie season.
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“So he's going to be a guy that I'm always going to remember at the start of my career and hopefully through my career as a coach that's had a big impact on me.”
About one year later, Brown was relieved of his duties, despite signing a multiyear contract extension with the Kings just five months prior.
Two months after Brown’s firing, the Kings traded star point guard De’Aaron Fox, Murray’s best friend on the team, to the San Antonio Spurs in a franchise-altering blockbuster move. Fox took Murray under his wing since the latter entered the league in 2022, and the two formed a wholesome “big bro-little bro” relationship over the years.
“Uncle Keegz” understood it was the business part of the NBA, but it certainly took some time to adjust to life as a King without Fox – for everyone.
Within three years, Murray went from a magical, storybook 2022-23 rookie season highlighted by a purple beam to experiencing a big wake-up call of the ups and downs in the NBA.
Despite all of that, he still took on the challenge of defending the opposing team’s best player night in and night out while also being scrutinized for not performing well enough on the other end of the floor. It’s something he reflects on with great pride, and something he won’t make excuses for as he continues to put in the work and strive toward two-way stardom.
“No, I'm not disappointed,” Murray said when asked if he was disappointed in his third season during end-of-the-season exit interviews in April. “I think, especially defensively, I took a really big leap. Being able to guard one through five effectively is really hard in this league. There's not many people that can do it.
“But obviously offensively, you want to be a little bit better. But there's not really an excuse or anything. It's just putting my head down and working harder this summer, just figure out different things.”
Sacramento’s lack of wing depth has taken a toll on Murray. In an ideal world, he said he wouldn’t want to be guarding centers every night, half joking that “it’s not the most fun thing in the world.” But Murray, at 6-foot-8 and 215 pounds, also noted that if he has to do it, he will.
Murray, taking note of his defensive assignment workload, spent more time in the weight room in Year 3. He also took his recovery more seriously. Aside from the physical aspect of it, he also made it an emphasis to mentally lock in on each player he would be tasked to guard, labeling it as “ a learning curve.”
On the offensive side of the ball, playing without a point guard since Fox’s departure, the Kings were noticeably flawed. Murray, alongside DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine, Domantas Sabonis and Malik Monk, tried their best to figure out a productive offense, but it was a struggle to gel.
Maybe more time together would have helped, but the pieces just didn’t seem to fit together in the same puzzle.
“I think in a way it's been difficult,” Murray said of adjusting to a new offense with new players. “Just because, especially my first years, we're just so used to the DHO game, the split action, and just all the guys kind of moving at the same time, and you never know who's going to get the shot.
“So yeah, I guess a little bit has been difficult, but at the end of the day, it’s who we have on our roster, and we have to make it work if we want to have success.”
Through the first 32 games of the 2024-25 season, Murray shot just 41.3 percent from the field and 28.6 percent from long range with 11.6 points per game in 35.4 minutes.
When the calendar year flipped, Murray’s offense became much more efficient, averaging 13 points on 46.7-percent shooting from the field and 38 percent from deep in the remaining 44 games.
“I feel like Keegan came a long way from an aggressive standpoint,” DeRozan said during his exit interview. “I think in the second half of the season, he became more aggressive. We kind of pushed him more. I don't think he has a ceiling. I think his capability is definitely unlimited.
“I hope I get to spend a lot of time with him this summer, just to really push him to that next level I think he needs. So you can see the Keegan Murray that everybody expects of him come next year. So, I think for me, my main priority is to be able to spend a lot of time with Keegan this summer.”
An offseason with one of the game's purest scorers certainly could help Murray's offense. Defending the six-time NBA All-Star all summer also could strengthen him defensively.
"Obviously, since he signed later in the summer, I wasn't really able to go down with him to LA," Murray said of DeRozan. "But I've already talked to some guys, and we're going to have a lot of guys down there, just being able to finally, as a team, get together and work out and just try and build chemistry that way. I just think the biggest thing, too, is just having those dinners or doing things outside of basketball, too, and on the court, everything just seems seamless.
"But he's been in the league for a while, and whatever I can do to learn from him, especially offensively, will just help me with more dimensions in my game."
Murray is marrying his fiancée, Carly, this summer. He said he's been a part of the wedding meetings, but is mostly letting Carly take the reins.
Kings coach Doug Christie, who officially got the "interim" label removed from his title, had a perfect way of congratulating Murray on his engagement.
"When I saw the picture, I told him, 'The fact that you got down on one knee tells me that you can get low on defense,' so plan on that," Christie joked with reporters back in February.
The room filled with laughter, but Christie was only half-joking. The new coach will continue to push Murray on both ends of the ball in their first full season together next year.
It will be a summer of change for the soon-to-be 25-year-old, as he embraces what's to come in Sacramento.
"I've had to fill different roles within the team, now that I think about it, every year," Murray said. "So with me, I think eventually it'll pay off. I know that eventually good things are going to happen. So I'm not worried about anything.
"I know my time is going to come, and whether it's next year, or a couple years after, I know eventually it'll be my time.