Is it too late for Jamal Murray to win ROY of the year? I’m just going to remove the suspense right away: no. It’s not. All it takes is one sick performance near the end of the year (because the voters, just like every human on earth, are reactionary), and a player can win easily.
The question then becomes, is 30 points enough for Murray to secure the award? Again, the answer is probably no. 30 points is a lot, and the way he scored them was very impressive (4 dunks holy cow), but it’s not an insane amount in the grand scheme of the NBA. Now, if he scored 50, that would be a different story. And if he scored 70, that would be an even different-er story. I see a bit of resemblance between Murray and Devin Booker. Who says that the Nuggets don’t go all out and try to make this happen for The Blue Arrow (lamest nickname ever)? Oh yeah, they’re still fighting for the playoffs. That means Murray can only chuck shots at his current level, which is already high, and no higher.
Murray did a surprising amount of damage inside the arc tonight. If I had to guess how his first 30-point game happened, my guess would have involved a lot of threes. Like 9 or 10 of them. The fact that he scored 30 with only 2 triples is maybe the most impressive part of this vid.