2. Become more of a playmaker
The first part in improving playmaking ability is to improve ball-handling; it’s difficult to set someone else up for a basket if you can’t even get past your own man. Dejounte Murray will need to tighten his handle before he can really improve as an iso player or as a setup artist.
Playmaking, ball-handling and isolation scoring all are clearly interrelated. Ball-handling enables a player to beat his man, which makes it easier to score. However, beating his guy also forces the defense to rotate over, which means there’s a shooter open on the perimeter.
The second component of playmaking is seeing and executing passes. Murray is not necessarily an unwilling passer, he’s just not a particularly talented one at this point in time. Last year, he averaged only 2.9 assists per game. Even in an egalitarian Spurs offense, that’s bad.
Improving his passing will prevent teams from ever being able to double-team him, not that they do so very frequently at the moment. More importantly though, it makes him a more complete point guard who elevates the games of those around him.