It's been mentioned in more than one game thread here. Drew's written about it. CoCo's written about it.
ITEM: Flip Murray and Acie Law IV do not form an effective backcourt combination.
- They are -42 in 137 minutes on the court together.
- Over the 137 minutes they've shared in the backcourt, the Hawks have averaged 86 points per 100 possessions.
During their shared minutes...
- Acie Law has shot 39.5% from the field*. Overall, Law has shot 41.5% from the field.
- Law averages 6.1 A/40. Overall, Law averages 6.8 A/40
- Flip Murray has shot 31.7% from the field. Overall Flip Murray has shot 38.7% from the field.
- Murray averages 17.5 FGA/40. Overall, Murray averages 16.2 FGA/40.
*This is the old, less revealing FG% rather than eFG% as the former is that's listed with the player pairs stats at 82games.
Admittedly, 137 minutes is not a huge sample size but I believe that it's time to try something else, be it more minutes for Law alongside Mike Bibby (with Law serving as the primary ball-handler), giving Flip Murray's minutes to Thomas Gardner* for a month, or using Maurice Evans for the vast majority of the minutes backing up both Marvin Williams and Joe Johnson.
*Gardner would certainly maintain Murray's tradition of bad defense and turnovers but would possibly make more shots while handling the ball less often.
Some more fun Flip Murray stats to make you feel ill...
| Player | Min | FGA | FGA/36 | FTA/36 | A/36 | TO/36 |
| Al Horford | 542 | 137 | 9.1 | 4.3 | 2.7 | 1.5 |
| Flip Murray | 401 | 163 | 14.6 | 4.3 | 1.7 | 2.2 |
Just think how good the Hawks offense (6th in the league) could be if Flip Murray (43.6 eFG%) didn't shoot 60% more often than Al Horford (53.3 eFG%).
Only Joe Johnson (27.5) has a higher usage rate* than Flip Murray (26.2). Josh Smith (21.7) and Mike Bibby (21.5) are third and fourth on the team in usage rate.
Only Zaza Pachulia (TO%: 20.2) finishes more of his possessions with a turnover than does Flip Murray (TO%: 18.6).
*Usage rate estimates of the percentage of team possessions used by an individual player when he is on the court.