San Antonio Spurs: 3 things learned during injury-riddled stretch

1. Dejounte Murray: More of an offensive threat than we imagined?

If your eyesight was lacking, you might not have been able to tell the difference between Dejounte Murray and say, Jason Kidd or Ron Harper over the first week of the season. And while that level of all-around brilliance hasn’t been a permanent carryover each night, San Antonio’s slim roster allowed us a chance to revisit some of those thoughts this past week.

Roughly 25-or-so shot attempts were on the table, thanks to the absences of Aldridge, Poeltl and Marco Belinelli, among others. Fortunately for the Spurs, Murray came back for seconds.

Over the six-game stretch, Murray averaged 13.0 points, 5.8 rebounds, and 4.7 assists per game. He struggled with consistency, somewhat of a theme after marquee games to this point. But there are enough positives to wrinkle out the negatives.

Minutes restrictions and rotation logjams probably had somewhat of an effect on Murray’s rhythm. But dating back to right before the All-Star break, you got the feeling that more homogeneous playing time was on the horizon.

Over his last 11 games, Murray has been averaging 14.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 5.5 assists nightly on a shooting line of .471/.455/.905.

Opportunity is something that, in the future, is going to bode well for Murray. It’s crazy to think, but Murray has been in the NBA since 2016-17 and has only 16 games with at least 30 minutes played.

There has been energizer bunny-type potential when he has logged north of that. The Spurs produce a 116 offensive rating when he does and a lockdown 105 defensive rating to boot.

During those 16 games, Murray is averaging 15.4 points, 7.1 rebounds and 5.2 assists with a 58.2 true shooting percentage. The seven players to average those landmarks this season? Giannis Antetokounmpo, LeBron James, Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, Domantas Sabonis, Bam Adebayo and Ben Simmons.

Most impressive is that Murray has found regular success outside of the paint. There are only 47 players in the NBA that attempt at least 2.5 midrange shots per game. Of that 47, Murray ranks No. 11 in field goal percentage at 47.7 percent.

These days, the midrange shot is largely ignored because of analytical biases. At 6’4” with a 6’10” wingspan, Murray is wise to put smaller guards in the torture chamber with quick, deadly, Kevin Garnett-type pull-ups in open space.

All offseason long, we had heard about how Murray was coming into his return season with an improved 3-point jumper after missing all of last year with a torn ACL. It felt smart to have trepidation; it’s not like we hadn’t heard this same storyline from Ben Simmons or Lonzo Ball in the past. And in the first 23 games of this season, Murray was shooting just 17.9 percent from deep (5-of-27).

Similar to Aldridge’s pre-Christmas epiphany, the young Spurs guard was gifted a shooting touch for the holidays. The thaw on his shooting has been especially noteworthy, where he’s shot 29-of-62 during that stretch.

If we’re grasping at straws for positives, Murray was expected to miss time in the foreseeable future to recover from a calf strain. The 30-day window of cancellations will allow him a chance to rest and recover, and continue to look the part as the Spurs point guard of the next regime.