Hawks in the NBA - Strikes and Gutters, Ups and Downs

Keegan Murray has another amazing month, but Iowa’s NBA contingent shrinks by one. Let’s go!

Keegan Murray

Keegan continued his amazing player in January. For the month, he averaged 14 points and 6 rebounds per game, while putting up a mind-melting 51/50/93 shooting split. Those numbers are absurd. So absurd it earned Keegan his second-straight Western Conference Rookie of the Month honor.

Look at those stats. Most 3s by a rookie in January ever. Tied for 9th in 3s made, league-wide. Among rookies, that’s a lot of stats in which he’s first, plus he had 3 double-doubles. What an amazing month.

The year has gone so well, he was named to the Rising Stars Game over All-Star weekend in Salt Lake City.

That’s an incredible group of players to be associated with. Well done, Keegan - this season has been nothing other than a success for him.

It’s also been an incredible season for the Kings. Barring injuries, total collapse, basically anything that could be constituted as “worst possible scenario,” the Kings look like a lock to make the playoffs this year. They sit third (!!) in the Western Conference at 29-21, 2.5 games above 4th-seeded Dallas. They are two games behind Memphis for the 2-seed. Anyone that had their Sacramento over/under locked in - you’re going to have some money coming your way!

Luka Garza

It hasn’t been as productive a run for Garza. After what seemed like a head-turning 16-point effort in a close loss to the West-leading Nuggets, Luka’s made just 4 appearances for the Timberwolves and went scoreless in 3 of them. He was temporarily sent back to Des Moines to get some work in, and he did this.

Excellent work there. Still, a little disappointing he had a 16-point game in that Nuggets matchup January 18, scores 16 points...then has 4 appearances in the 8 games the Wolves have had since. Good news though - he is back up with the Wolves again, as he played Wednesday night in their 119-114 overtime win over Golden State.

Joe Wieskamp

Here’s the gutters portion of this. Unfortunately, Wieskamp’s second 10-day contract with Toronto expired. Toronto had to either pick him up in full or allow the contract to expire and therefore allow Wieskamp to walk (teams get to offer two 10-day contracts then have that pick him up or let him go ultimate at the end of the second contract). The Raptors allowed the contract to expire, so Wieskamp was released last week. Like Garza, he had a nice showing two weeks ago (against Luka and the T-Wolves), making all 3 of his 3-point attempts. He then played just once more the rest of the contract, a 125-116 win over the New York Knicks on January 22. He played 5 minutes in that game and missed his only shot. His final game on the Toronto bench was in...Sacramento, a big win for the Raptors.

He is now back with the Wisconsin Herd in the G-League.