Major NBA Media Name Picks Keegan Murray to be Rookie of the Year

Former Iowa Hawkeye Keegan Murray has gotten national attention since he burst onto the national college basketball scene at the beginning of the 2021-2022 season.

Finishing the season as one of the best players in the entire country and leading the major conferences in scoring with 23.5 points per game, he rocketed up draft boards and was eventually picked fourth overall by the Sacramento Kings in the 2022 NBA Draft.

In the NBA Summer League, he continued to impress, putting up gaudy numbers and separating himself as one of -- if not the -- best player in the 2022 draft class so far. He put up 23.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, two assists, and 1.3 steals per game while shooting 50% overall and 40% on 3-pointers over the Kings' four games in Las Vegas. He also won the Summer League MVP. Pretty solid showing from the Cedar Rapids native.

He played so well that he got the attention of one of the biggest names in NBA media circles, Marc Spears, (no, not Marcus Spears, former NFL player turned media member) NBA senior writer for ESPN and Andscape.

So much so that Spears went on national television and said his pick to win the 2022 NBA Rookie of the Year Award would be Murray.

He also said that he believes the Kings will make the playoffs for the first time in nearly two decades, so maybe take that with a grain of salt (but also don't disregard him because he's sharing the screen as Kendrick Perkins, who is just awful).

Listen for yourself:

Spears isn't the only one heaping on praise for Murray. His counterpart and No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft, Paolo Banchero, had this to say about the former Hawkeye:

He’s tough. He’s a great player. Tremendous on offense, man. He’s a shotmaker. Every time he shoots, it’s almost like I think it’s going in. ... He’s a great player and it was fun competing against him.