he drained a dozen treys last week against the Milwaukee Bucks<\/a>. Too bad Murphy won’t get to show the rest of the NBA what he can do from long range.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cI would\u2019ve participated if I was invited, for sure,\u201d Murphy said.<\/p>\n
It’s a shame he wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Murphy, who is shooting 38 % on 3-pointers heading into Wednesday\u2019s game against the Miami Heat, ranks sixth in the league in made 3-pointers. He\u2019s made 166 this season, which is 166 more than Portland Trail Blazers\u2019 guard Damian Lillard has made. Lillard, as you know, is sitting out this season rehabbing the torn Achilles he injured in last season\u2019s playoffs. Despite not playing this season, Lillard will be in Saturday\u2019s 3-point contest at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles. Selecting a player who hasn\u2019t played a minute all season seems absurd for a weekend that is supposed to showcase the biggest stars this season. The other seven participants are Donovan Mitchell (Cavaliers), Devin Booker (Suns), Kon Knueppel (Hornets), Tyrese Maxey (76ers), Jamal Murray (Nuggets), Bobby Portis (Bucks) and Norman Powell (Heat). Mitchell, Knueppel and Maxey are the only ones in the contest with more made 3\u2019s and have a better percentage than Murphy.<\/p>\n
Murphy has a much stronger case to be in it than Lillard, Booker and Portis.<\/p>\n
Booker is shooting just 30 % on 3-pointers and has made just 71. (almost 100 less than Murphy).<\/p>\n
Portis is shooting 45.6%, but has only attempted 206 3-pointers (less than half of how many Murphy has attempted).<\/p>\n
Murphy has done some of his best shooting lately. He\u2019s made 23 3-pointers over the last three games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really just shooting the ball, being confident,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cSticking to my mechanics and getting my legs under my shots. I feel like before that Milwaukee game, there was about a week or so where I really wasn\u2019t getting my legs into my shot.\u201d<\/p>\n
His teammates have noticed the difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrey has always been lights out,\u201d said Zion Williamson. \u201cNow it\u2019s just a matter of how he\u2019s doing it. Instead of just catch and shoot, it\u2019s off the dribble now and (also) catch and shoot. It\u2019s still lights out though.\u201d<\/p>\n
If only the NBA was paying attention. Playing on a team with just 15 wins and zero nationally televised games didn\u2019t help Murphy\u2019s case. But I\u2019d counter that by pointing out that Pascal Siakam of the 13-win Indiana Pacers was selected for the All-Star game.<\/p>\n
Lillard and Booker are both former 3-point contest champions, so that surely helped. And they are household names to even the most casual of NBA fans.<\/p>\n
Murphy, in his fifth NBA season, is slowly but surely getting there. He’s already the Pelicans\u2019 all-time leader in made 3-pointers. So maybe this will fuel his fire even more.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got the same approach every day,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cJust getting better. Play my game. At some point, it\u2019ll be recognized that I\u2019m one of the better shooters in the league. Until then, it is what it is. I\u2019ll keep working on my game and shooting the ball like I have been. Not being in the 3-point contest is not going to ruin my day.\u201d<\/p>\n
But was he snubbed?<\/p>\n
Murphy smiled before answering that question.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll let y\u2019all be the judge of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
This judge says “yes.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA dropped the ball.\u00a0 Then they picked it up and shot an airball. That\u2019s how bad of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3796],"tags":[7,5498,6,478,470,4073,4072,675],"class_list":{"0":"post-596604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-pelicans","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-hardwall","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-new-orleans","12":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans","13":"tag-neworleans","14":"tag-neworleanspelicans","15":"tag-pelicans"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116051934093741575","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}