What Are the Chances Flip Murray's Just Turned Into a Good Player?

by Hoopinion on Nov 11, 2008 9:34 AM EST

Inspired by Bronn's question in the comments following yesterday's game recap...

If you think it's ridiculous to look at someone's numbers after 5 games and 117 minutes played (a reasonable opinion), skip the rest of this. Everyone else, here's the numbers, draw your own conclusions.

Murray is on pace to set career highs in FGA, 3PTA, and FTA per minute played. That's not a function of the Hawks' pace. Basketball-reference.com (from whence all these numbers are taken) ranks the Hawks 20th in the league in pace of play.

Murray's shooting numbers, year-to-date versus his career:

Time Period	2PT%	3PT%	FT%
02-08	44.6	27.9	71.4
year-to-date	41.7	41.2	57.9

Murray's great improvement can be traced directly to him taking many more threes per 36 minutes so far this season (5.2) than is typical for his career (2.98) while also making those shots at almost 150% his career rate. His career-best 3PT% is 31.7. The silver lining is that Murray's getting to the line fairly often despite shooting so many threes and should soon start converting more of his free throw attempts. He might make a slightly higher percentage of his two-point attempts as the season progresses. He might not. Single-season two-point percentage is notoriously inconsistent*. Bear in mind, though, that even with him making less than 60% of his free throws his year-to-date TS% is above his career average.

*You may recall that Joe Johnson's uncharacteristically low two-point percentage last year flummoxed both John Hollinger and Kevin Pelton's projection systems.

Murray's also done an uncharacteristically good job of not turning the ball over so far this year. He's turned the ball over on just 7.5% of the possessions he's used versus a career TO% of 13.8 and a career-best of 12.5%. As his turnovers increase, we shouldn't expect his assist rate to pick. He's slightly below his career average in that category but right in line with his rates when he was installed in a similar role in Seattle.

Rounding out the statistical profile, Murray is also above his career norms in OR% (+26%), DR% (+13%), and steal percentage (+35%).

Bronn tentatively put the odds of Murray actually being as good as he's played so far this season at 20-1. I'm not going to make a guess. I think I've made my feelings on Flip Murray clear. I also think all Hawks fans are hoping I'm as mistaken about Murray's value going forward as I may have been about Mike Woodson's late-bloomer potential as a head coach.

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FLIP!

lol, good to see you conceding to the statistical facts and giving murray some props, we all see that you dont particularly favor that player, but he has been splenda for the Hawks off the bench, when he was first signed, i also did not think he would play this well, but i believed in him, especially him coming from the Pistons

but damn u are a beast at crunching numbers, i respect u much for that and more
this is the best hawksblog online
keep it up

http://playoffshawks.blogspot.com

by higherself08 on Nov 11, 2008 11:49 AM EST reply actions

We have all seen the way teams play the hawks in the half-court offense. They try to make sure that Joe doesn’t beat them. They put as much pressure on him as possible, and dare the rest of the team to make jumpers. This is a tactic that has stiffled the hawks for a few years now, since the Hawks haven’t had many other options to go too aside from Joe.

However, in the early goings of this year that tactic has been much less effective due to the improved shooting of Marvin Williams, as well as the presence of Bibby, Evans, and yes, even Flip Murry.

Flip Murray is a role player. And his role on this team is to the counter the double teams that Joe Johnson commands. Teams want to pressure Joe, but they don’t want to leave the other shooters open. So they play the percentages (and Flip’s reputation) and use Flip’s man to double Joe, figuring that Murray’s low efficiency will work in their favor in the long run.The result is often either a wide-open shot, or a lane to drive to the hoop. That’s the difference, i think, so far with Murry this year and previous years is that is getting the ball with alot of space. he usually isn’t being guarded.

Flip wants to score more than anything else. that’s been his M.O. since he came into the League. When he gets a look, he does not hesitate, and he has no conscience, he just shoots the ball. The problem is that he does the same thing whether there are three guys around him with a hand in his face ro he is all alone five feet from the basket. But on this team, with Joe, he doesn’t have to force bad shots to get his points, because he is getting plenty of easy shots.

by thirdfALCON on Nov 11, 2008 3:32 PM EST reply actions 1 recs