The morning after the Heat eliminated the Bulls from the playoffs, a bleary-eyed Tom Thibodeau squinted into the sun outside the Berto Center and made his desires known. "We need shooting," the Bulls coach said. Anyone who watched the Heat-Spurs NBA Finals would agree. From Danny Green's record-setting 3-point performance for the Spurs to Ray Allen's clutch 3-pointer and Shane Battier's Game 7 heroics beyond the arc for the Heat, shooting is needed for every team, particularly one that employs Derrick Rose. Tony Snell and Erik Murphy, welcome to Chicago. The Bulls used the 20th pick in Thursday's NBA draft on Snell, the New Mexico wing who connected on 38 percent of his 434 3-point attempts in three seasons for Steve Alford's Lobos. In the second round with the 49th pick overall, they added Murphy, a 6-foot-10 "stretch 4" from Florida who led the SEC in 3-point shooting last season at 45.3 percent. "In today's NBA, you can never have enough shooting," Thibodeau said. "We addressed a need. Both guys shoot extremely well." Snell, who possesses a wingspan near 7 feet, a 9-inch hand length and very low 4.9 percent body fat, has the tools and athleticism to become a strong perimeter defender able to guard multiple positions. But make no mistake: His role, particularly with the expected free-agent departures of Marco Belinelli and Nate Robinson, will be to score from range. - See more at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport...lls-nba-draft-chicago-20130628,0,813656.story
Hopefully Thibs puts their shooting to good use. But shooting is one thing, scoring is another. The woeful Kirk Hinrich managed to shoot .390 from 3pt. It sure seemed like Nate's scoring won playoff games for us, not his or Belinelli's 3pt shooting. Nate shot .432 for the playoffs. On the other and, Rip shot .429 from 3pt range, but hardly played.
I think this is why guys like Snell get drafted in the 1st round and guys like Erik Murphy get drafted in the second. Murphy took almost 5 threes a game and made 45% of them, but is weak and undersized for his position. He's a shooter, nothing more and nothing less. Snell kinda did the same thing, but looks to be passable scoring the ball, and maybe excellent defending it. So if they work out, you might be able to get 15mpg out of Murphy and 30mpg out of Snell.
Snell's (lack of) production in college is one of his biggest knocks, for sure. The retort is that the offense he played in was heavily predicated on movement and sharing the ball, and he willingly sacrificed individual performance for team success. We'll see what the final verdict is. In any case, I think it's clear that Snell and Murphy possess different physical tools for their positions. From what little I know about Murphy, he looks like a guy who's not particularly mobile or athletic and will probably be scoring most of his points in the NBA with his feet set. Tony Snell doesn't strike me as a remarkable athlete for a 2/3, but his combination of length and lateral quickness gives him the capability to score around the basket that's not really in the cards for our second round draft pick.
