Murphy attended Niagara University where he put up some flat out gaudy numbers. As a freshman he averaged a ridiculous 49 points per game. His numbers came down as he played on better teams and as the school faced better talent but they were still ridiculous such as 38 points his Sophomore season, 32 his Junior and 29 his senior year. In total he played 77 games and averaged 33 points per game.

Even though he was a scoring machine in college the NBA took little note of Murphy and he fell to the 18th pick in the second round of the 1970 NBA draft where he was picked by the San Diego Rockets. He had a solid rookie season averaging 16 points per game and was named to the all-rookie team.

The Rockets moved from San Diego to Houston in 1971 and Murphy came with them. He improved on his rookie season averaging 18 points a game. For some inexplicable reason his third season was his absolutely worse. His scoring fell to 13 a game and rebounds to under 2. However, the next season he averaged over 20 a game.

Murphy continued to average over 20 a game for the rest of the 1970s including a career high 26 a game in 1978. He made his only all-star game in 1979. In 1981 the Rockets made a deep playoff run making the NBA finals before losing to the Boston Celtics. It would be the closest to winning a title that Murphy ever got.

He began to decline in the 80s as the Rockets added more talent around him. His last season the Rockets where terrible going 14-68 and getting the number one pick which they used on Ralph Sampson.

In 1,002 career games with the Rockets Murphy averaged 18 points and 4 assists. He was named to the basketball hall of fame in 1993 and has served as the Rockets color analyst on TV since the 1980s

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