4 great seasons not enough people are talking about

Trey Murphy III and three more players who deserve recognition

At Basketball Poetry, I strive to cover the league with (what I hope is) a rare combination of depth and breadth, but the limits of being just one overly-verbose writer mean I can never get to everyone I want to write about.

Today’s article is a step toward fixing that.

I wanted to cover a quartet of players having terrific years that, for one reason or another, are flying under the radar. These aren’t All-Stars, although a few are close to that level. But they are outplaying expectations in ways that have meaningful repercussions for their teams.

Trey Murphy III, New Orleans Pelicans

Shoutout to reader Trust Dust for inspiring this entire article with his stumping for Trey Murphy as an All-Star candidate.

Murphy is having the best season of his five-year career, averaging 22/6/4 while shooting 49% from the field and 38% from deep on very high volume. There’s a reason why his name keeps popping up in trade rumors with jaw-dropping price tags — he’s become one of the league’s most dynamic young scorers.

Murphy is the only player in the league with 70 dunks and 70 made three pointers (and he’s actually laced 136 triples, so he clears by an astounding amount). Put another way, he’s the only player averaging 1.5 dunks and 3.0 threes made per game. He’s basically an NBA 2K MyPlayer come to life, and he fills box scores and highlight reels with equal aplomb.

As I’ve highlighted before, Murphy has concocted immediate chemistry with the sweet-slingin’ rookie center, Derik Queen, who constantly looks for Murphy on backdoor alley-oops or whip-quick catch-and-release threes. Murphy has also upped his screening game, running occasional inverted pick-and-pops that morph into a flare screen for Murphy. I’d like to see this semi-improvised play used more often and with more urgency:

But although more of his looks are assisted than before, Murphy still has plenty of on-ball juice for a guy who is often fourth in the ballhandling pecking order:

Look at that! Even a stumbling Anthony Davis would’ve swatted an ordinary layup out of the sky, and sensational rookie Cooper Flagg was right there, too. But Murphy has the springboard grace to leap through the air, split two defenders, and jackhammer home an emphatic slam. You can see Flagg wondering what kind of hell-bat just flew past him.

Murphy is also swiping a career-best 1.5 steals per game, and while he’s far from a lockdown defender, it’s nice that he can at least create a little chaos and get out in transition, where he’s been excellent his entire career.

The Pelicans’ brass is reportedly refusing to entertain trade offers for Murphy. Typically, bad teams should want to shop their most valuable players, but Murphy is an ideal player for a team beginning a rebuild. Efficient, high-volume, dynamic off-ball players are incredibly rare in this league, and Murphy acts as a pressure reliever for Queen, fellow rookie Jeremiah Fears, and Zion Williamson, all of whom need the ball and, subsequently, space to do things with the ball.

Murphy is just 25 years old and in the first year of an epic steal of a four-year contract paying him around $28 million a year (discounted partially due to concerns about Murphy’s health). New Orleans would be right to hold onto Murphy unless it’s the kind of haul that gets the other team’s GM fired a year or two later.

Tidjane Salaün? Tidjane Salaün, Charlotte Hornets

I’m picking Salaün here, but really, I want to talk about the Hornets as a team.