KEEGAN Murray

Murray's last four outings have come in October, and all four were losses. He logged 0 minutes on October 5 against the Lakers with no stats recorded, then 7.8 minutes for 5 points against Golden State on October 10, the same day he was cleared from his day-to-day listing. Three days later against Portland he played 19.1 minutes and scored 10 points with 3 rebounds. Most recently, on October 16 against San Antonio, he played 16.8 minutes and scored 3 points with 1 rebound. None of those four games have gone the Kings' way. The minutes have moved around game to game, which tracks with a player working back from two separate day-to-day listings in the same stretch.

In 23 games last season, Murray averaged 14.0 points, 5.7 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 1.0 steal and 1.6 blocks in 34.5 minutes per game. He shot 42.0 percent from the field, 27.7 percent from three-point range and 77.6 percent from the free-throw line, with a true shooting mark of 49.9 percent. His usage rate was 18.2 percent, and he turned the ball over 1.2 times per game. Those numbers came with a minus-7.1 plus-minus mark last season, when he played for Sacramento. It was a shortened season by games played, 23 contests, but the per-game workload, 34.5 minutes, shows he was still a rotation fixture whenever he was on the floor for the Kings.

Murray's name surfaced on October 11 in a Pacific Notes roundup, one of those multi-name league notebooks that groups several players together under speculation and chatter rather than a single reported story. Nothing in that item amounts to a trade call, an offer or a stated plan from Sacramento's front office regarding Murray himself. He was simply mentioned alongside other names making the rounds that week. Until something more concrete is reported, Murray remains a King: on the roster, off the injury report, and playing out the preseason schedule. Notebooks like that one circulate constantly in October, and most of what appears in them does not turn into an actual transaction.

Keegan Murray is entering his fourth season with the Kings. He wears No. 13, stands 6-foot-8 and 225 pounds, and plays forward. Murray is 26 years old and played his college basketball at Iowa before turning pro. The most recent full accounting of his game is last season's averages: 14.0 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.7 assists over 23 games for Sacramento. He has spent this preseason working back from a left ankle issue and a second, undisclosed day-to-day listing, and he is currently clear of both. That puts him in position to be available as the Kings' regular-season schedule approaches.