Dejounte Murray named as a finalist for Most Improved Player

[Dex]

Took a quick glance and didn't see a thread about this, sorry if I missed it:

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https://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/article/mip-finalist-spurs-dejounte-murray-17087947.php

I think it probably goes to Garland, but still a great season and accomplishment for DJ regardless. Home grown All-Star, baby!

[rjv]

i agree that garland will likely get it and he deserves it but props to murray. i have no idea why ja is in this grouping.

[wildbill2u]

Props to Murray. He really improved his handling and shooting since coming into the league and last year the improvements led to a lot of triple doubles. YEA!

But I have a question. Did Murray's improvement to our go-to guy who was taking up most of the plays on offense lead to a lot of guys standing around watching Murray go one-on-one? Seemed to me sometimes that the development or participation of other players like Vassell, Primo, White, was hindered because the drive for more individual honors (triple doubles) and possible wins was the goal.

We actually played pretty well while Murray was out for a few games at the end of the season with Vassell especially seemingly coming out of his shell. You might want to consider the late surge from Lonnie and the 20+ games by Keldon in that breaking out of the deference given to Murray.

[Robz4000]

100% goes to Morant even though he shouldn't be considered since we was already an elite talent. Murray being a finalist is great to see; figured he'd be left out in favor of Jordan Poole despite having the much greater leap.

[SAGirl]

Ja is my pick. I stated why elsewhere. Murray is very deserving tho. Congrats.

[Dex]

Props to Murray. He really improved his handling and shooting since coming into the league and last year the improvements led to a lot of triple doubles. YEA!

But I have a question. Did Murray's improvement to our go-to guy who was taking up most of the plays on offense lead to a lot of guys standing around watching Murray go one-on-one? Seemed to me sometimes that the development or participation of other players like Vassell, Primo, White, was hindered because the drive for more individual honors (triple doubles) and possible wins was the goal.

We actually played pretty well while Murray was out for a few games at the end of the season with Vassell especially seemingly coming out of his shell. You might want to consider the late surge from Lonnie and the 20+ games by Keldon in that breaking out of the deference given to Murray.

I think that is hard to quantify but definitely a good topic for discussion. I think that Dejounte made a concerted effort to step up as "the leader", and doing so probably led to him going into hero ball mode sometimes. Tony Parker was chastised for the same thing on many occasions, but Tony also took us to great places and had some heroic moments doing so.

I also do think that the influence of DeMar Derozan rubbed off on Murray a lot, and so did his style of play (for better or worse). With DDR gone, Murray wanted to be that guy to step up in the clutch and go get the big bucket...even if that meant going to DeMar's tendencies where instead of running a solid play, we just burn the clock and he tries to dribble into a contested fadeaway jumper.

I didn't like it when LaMarcus did that, I didn't like it when DeMar didn't that, and I don't like it when Dejounte does that.

[TD 21]

Murray has no chance but I believe he's the best fit for the three in terms of what the spirit of the award should be.

There's others, of course (Poole, Bane, Maxey, etc.) but they weren't nominated.