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I kind of think DJ's long term future is as a SG. But obviously his shooting has to continue to improve. He and Lonnie are in compe ion, long term, I feel more than he and White.
White will always be better than Murray because he can actually dribble a basketball. I don't know who the told Murray he can be a point guard with that atrocious handle. His high school and college coaches failed him.
I kind of think DJ's long term future is as a SG. But obviously his shooting has to continue to improve. He and Lonnie are in compe ion, long term, I feel more than he and White.
I hate that that people are trying to use the SG position to hide Murray. The problem isn't that Murray can't play PG. Plenty of offense run just fine without a CP3 or Rondo running the show. The problem with Murray is that his offensive game sucks, on ball, off ball, on the break, in the half court, whatever, wherever. No, Murray and White don't work well together, because Murray's whole game is him dribbling and taking long-twos. No position in the NBA needs that anymore except in the case of stars who need that part of their games to be able to get buckets.
Murray shouldn't start. There's no "upside" there. He's not a defensive beast -- he doesn't make other players better. He's an energy guy like Ronnie Turiaf or Reggie Evans. He can come in, create havoc and take advantage of that havoc for a few minutes a quarter. Even if he learns to shoot better, right now, he wants to be Jamal Crawford. What he and a lot of other Seattle kids that grew up idolizing Crawford fail to understand is that Crawford sucked. He almost ALWAYS sucked, at least in the context of playing winning ball. No one should want to be like him. He was a flashy but decidedly negative player in all but a couple of his 21 seasons. It'd be like if a bunch of young bigs idolized Josh Smith, but at least Smith was a DPOY candidate at one point.
Sorry, basically, Murray needs to tear down his game and rebuild it from the bottom up, or he needs to settle down and pretty much do nothing except go for deflections and rebounds. There's no a role in the starting offense for him, and until he flames out and has to look at his game objectively, he's probably not going to be willing to do it. Obviously PatFO isn't blameless here. Murray should've been in the Walker school of development. He should've just been focusing on man defense and three-point shooting. But instead, Pop anointed Murray as the next big thing, had him sit in on PG meetings, gave him a starting job he didn't earn -- twice -- and ultimately made it impossible for the Spurs to get the best Murray. And I get it. I WANT Murray to be a star too. He is a willing leader and more importantly he seems to love being a Spur. With Walker and White having confidence issues, it would be really cool is Murray were some young star with Fox or SGA. But that's not him, and it's not going to be him, even if he starts off the next year with a string of 20-plus point games on good efficiency and threatening triple-doubles in each. His play style is not sustainable because it lacks a foundation of efficient points that can bend the defense to allow other easy points. His pull-up should be what he goes to because a team is overplaying his penetration or because they are trying to run him off the line. It shouldn't be his bread and butter.
Sigh. The problem with Murray is Murray first and foremost. Stop trying to bend the team to make Murray good. He's never been good enough to warrant that, and now that the team is starting to get legitimate young talent, the fan base should stop looking at DJM as the hope for the future. These aren't the days where Hill, Hairston and Blair were supposed to take over for the Big Three anymore.
It's too bad because the Spurs have paid up for him, but beyond the money $$ is really the disappointment. He is much better now than he was when he came in, that is true. The problem is that he is still not good enough for what he needs to be, what his game needs to be to work. And he could work better as a roleplayer but instead he keeps wanting to be the man. The Spurs backed themselves into a corner with him because the vacuum for leadership that arose when he came in. I hope he can adapt but I don't see it.
I'm not ready to write off Murray yet. People say he hasn't developed; this is isn't true. He hasn't broken out, but his jump shot has come a long ways; now his game is mostly long twos, yes. But if his jumper continues to improve, he's going to be a viable 3pt shooter. Maybe even next season. This will help him quite a bit. He's still 3 years younger than White (and always will be), so he's got some time. Sucks that we have to pay him big money to develop, because he's off his rookie contract, but that's how it goes with early entrants...
i think the main problem with murray is that he seems to want to be an all-star more than he wants to play in a way that could potentially make him an all-star. he wants to be somebody.
so he tries too hard, and i think his friendship or whatever with james and crawford makes it worse.
They were kind of stuck. They were high on his potential, maybe too high, but when he got injured, they lost a season of evaluation and had limited information to decide if he was worth the gamble.
The problem really isn't take he takes long-twos and not threes. The problem is that he dribbles into long-twos as his first instinct. Merely increase his 3pt% won't fix that, because Murray will still be constantly breaking the offensive flow of the team to get his points.
So long ago that it was basically another life, I talked about the difference between primary and secondary penetration. Primary penetration is attack against a set defense or as part of a play. Secondary penetration is attack off a kickout or other pass after or during a play.
Johnson, for example usually attacks off secondary penetration. He catches the ball, reads the defense and attacks where he thinks a weakness has formed.
Murray's almost exclusively primary penetration (if you can call it that seeing as he rarely gets within 12 feet of the basket).
Before anyone asks, it's not a PG vs SG thing. DeRozan is a primary penetrator. Gay was one but has become more secondary as he's gotten older.
Walker can do both.
So Murray getting threes as a cut-off to primary penetration rather than the long-twos he hits now doesn't really change the issue that he's not a primary penetrator and needs to stop looking to beat guys off the dribble without there being prior movement to give him leverage. Other guys need to be getting those touches, and Murray needs to be passing the ball if he's not wide open or doesn't have leverage over his man after the catch. If you accept that, the entire nature of his ceiling changes. People will stop talking about his potential, especially in relation to White. They'll stop talking about him and White fitting together over Walker and/or Johnson. DJM could fit on a team as a low option, but there are other players on the team who can already do that better.
There's a chance that DJM will start to find his niche next season, albeit a shortened season because of the Pandemic. The season after next which I hope will be a full season meaning a vaccine was created which means more than anything, DJM will prove some doubters wrong. If you think about it, he rarely played in his 1st year, 2nd year he made the ALL DEFENSIVE TEAM and moving in the right direction, no 3rd year because of a major Injury that was also rehabilitated in this 4th year that was just completed in shortened due to Covid. DJM will most likely never be a better player than KJ but I do believe that in 2 years (remember next season will not be a full season due to Covid) DJM will be a very important piece to the puzzle to challenge for the Spurs 6th Championship. I don't see any CURRENT Spurs players that has the potential outside of KJ to average at least 15/8.5/8.5 besides DJM. Please stop talking about DJM not being a true PG because like I've stated before, Pop said "There's no such thing as PG with this CURRENT team and I love it and believe it's going to work with KJ, White, LW4 and DJM as facilitators on any play coming up the court. Most teams, if any, will be able to show that type of game. The Spurs will be better off if they find a way to keep all 4 players. The defensive potential of this young core will ultimately lead the Spurs and us Spurs fan to the 6th Chip!!!! Read this post again and really sit back and think about it. If you think and feel differently, all good but I'f it works out keeping both DJM and White, please appreciate and not player hate!
the main problem is that Flopovich thinks Murray is Tony Parker. Give the old man some glasses
Ahh doesn’t this all remind you of those 1000 post Tony Vs Manu camps.
With the difference that both were good back then.
no. HOF players both vs... ???
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