Damn! Jamal Murray has been a tear lately, flashing his touted scoring ability while making a bunch of teams regret not picking him in the draft (coughwheezewolvessputtercough). He’s the most productive player in his class, and he’s doing it after spending the first few games of the season in a malfunctioning cryogenic storage chamber.
The quality of this and his last few games mean he is quickly running away with the RWWADTYOTY award. In case you forgot, that stands for “Rookie Who Was Actually Drafted This Year Of The Year”. I love Joel Embiid like everyone else. Really. I don’t begrudge him his presumptive vanilla-ROY award. But it’s NOT FAIR to Jamal that Joel got to spend a bunch of time drinking Shirley Temples and receiving vet wisdom from Elton Brand while Jamal had to toil under the cracking whip of the NCAA. Not fair at all. Do you think it’s fair? Because it’s not.
This particular performance by Jamal was kind of free throw heavy, which as everyone knows makes for subpar highlights. Don’t worry though! Two of the free throws came after he was brutally fouled trying to posterize Domantas Sabonis, and later had three clutch free throws after Steven Adams kindly fouled him late in the game make up for it!