The Fantasy Basketball Encyclopedia

Player Dossier · Sacramento Kings

Keegan Murray

Keegan Murray is Sacramento's cleanest category-league breakout bet because threes, rebounds, stocks, and low turnovers can survive modest usage, provided his left ankle is truly behind him.

Team: Sacramento Kings · Age: 25 · Position: SF/PF · As of: 2026-07-18

2026-27 median projection

GP MPG FG% FT% 3PM PTS REB AST STL BLK TO
68 32.0 .445 .808 2.0 15.2 6.2 1.8 1.0 1.2 1.1

Nine-cat: top-65 to top-90 median. Points: B because modest assists limit the ceiling. Dynasty: 7.5/10; age, contract, and two-way category shape are favorable.

Role and evidence

Murray's 2025-26 line was 14.0 points, 5.7 rebounds, 1.0 steal, and 1.6 blocks in 34.5 minutes, but he played only 23 games and shot 42.0% from the field and 27.7% from three (ESPN statistics). The block spike is regressed, while the shooting is projected to rebound toward his longer history.

Sacramento announced on February 3 that Murray was progressing from a moderate left-ankle sprain and had been approved for contact work (official medical update); he returned later in the season. On May 14 he underwent arthroscopy to remove loose bodies from the same ankle, with a reported six-to-eight-week recovery and an expectation of being ready for camp. The timeline supports the base projection, but unrestricted lateral movement remains a recheck rather than an established fact. NBC Sports surgery report, 2026-05-14

Hashtag Basketball ranked Murray 68th in dynasty but only 126th on its July 18 crowd keeper board. Its written outlook correctly identifies veteran movement as the usage hinge. That 58-slot disagreement is a reason to demand a discount, not to abandon the profile.

Range

Career record

Pre-NBA: A postgraduate year at DME Academy (22.1 points, 7.5 rebounds, most outstanding player at the National Prep School Invitational) preceded two seasons at Iowa. 2020-21: 31 games, 18.0 minutes, 7.2 points, 5.1 rebounds, 1.3 blocks on .506 FG and .296 from three, Big Ten All-Freshman. 2021-22: 35 games, 31.9 minutes, 23.5 points, 8.7 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 1.9 blocks on .554/.398/.747 — consensus first-team All-American, first-team All-Big Ten, Karl Malone Award, Big Ten Tournament Most Outstanding Player. The sophomore jump was one of the largest in recent college basketball and it came from added strength and volume, not a new skill. Draft: 2022, round 1, pick 4, Sacramento Kings. No draft-night trade; he has spent his whole career in Sacramento.

Season Age Team GP MPG PTS REB AST STL BLK 3PM FG% FT% TO
2022-23 22 SAC 80 29.8 12.2 4.6 1.2 0.8 0.5 2.6 .453 .765 0.8
2023-24 23 SAC 77 33.6 15.2 5.5 1.7 1.0 0.8 2.4 .454 .831 0.8
2024-25 24 SAC 76 34.3 12.4 6.7 1.4 0.8 0.9 2.0 .444 .833 0.8
2025-26 25 SAC 23 34.5 14.0 5.7 1.7 1.0 1.6 1.3 .420 .776 1.2
Career 256 32.7 13.3 5.6 1.5 0.9 0.8 2.2 .447 .807 0.8

Three-point percentage by season: .411, .358, .343, .277. The volume and the accuracy have both fallen every year since the rookie season.

Fantasy history: Season-end nine-category ranks from a primary rater were not verifiable in this pass and are not estimated. What the table supports: 2022-23 and 2023-24 were solid mid-round category seasons built on three-point volume, near-zero turnovers and a rising free-throw percentage, with 2023-24 the best of them; 2024-25 was a rebounding-driven season in which scoring efficiency and three-point accuracy both slipped and the value flattened; 2025-26 has no meaningful season rank because he played 23 games. In points leagues he grades below his category value in every year, because the profile is built on cheap positive categories — low turnovers, percentages, stocks — that a points format either ignores or barely rewards, and he has never cleared 16 points per game.

Durability: 80, 77, 76, 23. The first three years were close to ironman for a young forward. 2025-26 broke that completely and it was four separate injuries, not one: a torn UCL in his left thumb cost the first 15 games and delayed his debut to November 20; a mild calf strain around December 23 against Detroit cost a couple more; a moderate left ankle sprain suffered January 4 against Milwaukee cost about 20 games; he returned February 19 after the All-Star break, reaggravated the same ankle against Houston, and never played again after February 25. He also dealt with back trouble during the year. On May 14 he had an arthroscopic procedure to remove loose bodies from that left ankle, reported at six to eight weeks of recovery with a training-camp target.

Trajectory: Three healthy seasons produced a stable, slightly disappointing player: a 32-to-34-minute starter whose counting stats moved with minutes rather than with skill, and whose three-point shooting — the single reason he was drafted fourth — has declined from .411 to .358 to .343 to .277. That last figure came in 23 injured games and should not be read as the new true talent, but the three-year slope before it is real and is the main argument against the breakout case. The one genuinely new signal in 2025-26 was blocks jumping to 1.6 in the same minutes he had always played, which would be a meaningful category addition if it holds, but 23 games is too small a sample to trust and the honest prior is somewhere between his 0.9 baseline and that spike. At 25 he is entering the normal peak window with no aging-curve headwind, so the variables are all situational and medical: whether the ankle is genuinely resolved after a second procedure on it, and whether Sacramento's veteran usage in front of him clears enough for him to shoot his way back to 2.4 threes a game. The base case is a return to his 2023-24 shape rather than a leap past it.

Career sources: StatMuse career per-game by season, ESPN career stats, Wikipedia — Keegan Murray, NBA.com — Murray out 3-4 weeks with left ankle sprain, Hoops Rumors — arthroscopic ankle surgery

Open questions