Anyone notice Dunleavy Jr.?

Dunleavy's not here, but he caused us some strong emotions to remind us of what we felt like when he was here. Especially after watching his defense and his shooting ability. I shed three kinds of tears when Dunleavy was here. Tears of sadness (when we drafted him), tears of laughter (out of character moments or after he got his picture taken in-game), and tears of joy (when we traded away him and Murphy for improved defensive and playoff-experienced personnel).</p>

I still think Dunleavy's best game was in 2003, when we had a stronger defensive, passing power forward (Clif Robinson) and a contract-year center worthy of an all-star bid + two pure point guards. Put those two elements together and suddenly Dunleavy is an asset because he can feed guys inside off the dribble. Contrast that with Murphy's inability to defend and the fact he doesn't pass the ball or move very much. I don't like Dunleavy that much because he has no true position as an oversized, slow guard, but the best parts of his game make other players better if those other 4 players actually fit together. It just got worse and worse when they push Fisher (a non pure point) at starting point guard, Troy Murphy at power forward, and Adonal Foyle at starting center. Those guys are all backup players on thin teams and none of them pass or get the ball back to other people. At least Dunleavy would try to set guys up, the other 3 don't know how.</p>

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane)</div><div class='quotemain'></p>

Dunleavy sure looked fantastic on defense last night, guarding a much smaller and quicker Ben Gordon.</p>

Gordonstartedouthot,butDunleavyprettymuchshuthimdownstartinginQ2. It was actually something I watched for quite closely.</p>

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A sentence with the words "Dunleavy" and "defense" without a word similar to "bad" is something I'd never expect to see.</p>

How did Gordon get shut down? Is he injured or something?</p>

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane)</div><div class='quotemain'></p>

Dunleavy basically did all the right things on defense. He fought through screens, and was basically in Gordon's grill from Q2 on.</p>

The coach drew a technical foul in Q2, then Murphy got his first T, and it seemed to have lit a fire under the whole team. Then there was the altercation between Murphy and Tyrus Thomas as well.</p>

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Wow. I still don't get how Dunleavy is all of a sudden really good, and the Pacers are a team with a winning record. Seems so...wrong.</p>

 

It's easy to get why he's good. He's had it, but he's just a delicate player who needs the right system, team players and coaching. I don't think Dunleavy could do well with certain players next to him like our team, for instance.</p>

It's ironic that I actually liked Pietrus and Murphy a lot better than Dunleavy back then. It turns out I liked Dunleavy a lot better than Pietrus and Murph before the Indiana trade because it became very obvious that Pietrus is a dumb player and Murph is just lazy with his feet and he's a blackhole on offense. I look at Dun's highlights of 2003-2004, he's a versatile, cerebral player that does so much more when he's got better defenders to protect him and he's got somebody to throw to inside. It could have just been chemistry and how they tried to make Dun into this catch and shoot long range guy, when he's IMO a lot better at shooting off the dribble and distributing. Maybe Dun is like Steve Francis, he'll be better shooting the ball on the drive, only Dun doesn't need to pound the ball and look for a play that isn't there. Anyway, it's easy to hate on Dunleavy because he's so soft when it comes to a little body bump and he disappears. But when he's playing well, he's a nice player. Everyone needs one of those guys that can provide the glue, but unfortunately Dunleavy is very particular to what teams he can actually play on because of his strength/speed liabilities.</p>

We've seen him get 20/20 playing point guard and other games we've seen him dominate at power forward and wonder how he defended the other team's power forward... He finds a way, but he doesn't do it alone. He's just a really good teamwork player if we're not looking at his physical weaknesses and his generally quiet demeanor/T-mac facial expression on the court. Dunleavy flopped a lot on defense, but it's a lot better than his 2003 days where he just got burned or couldn't close out on shooters quickly enough. It was his first real year in the league.</p>

 

Dunleavy's doing good. I'm happy for him. What's the big deal? I would not boo him when he comes back to Oakland. That's just not very classy.</p>

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Dec 13 2007, 07:51 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Dunleavy basically did all the right things on defense. He fought through screens, and was basically in Gordon's grill from Q2 on.
The coach drew a technical foul in Q2, then Murphy got his first T, and it seemed to have lit a fire under the whole team. Then there was the altercation between Murphy and Tyrus Thomas as well.</div>

Wait. So Murphy is back and it's a Dunmurphy front line? Watch Dunleavy's stats drop now .

 

Dunleavy is doing well still. He's in the right situation now.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kensaku @ Mar 12 2008, 01:37 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Dunleavy is doing well still. He's in the right situation now.</div>

Yeah, I know. I got him on my fantasy team. He's doing better than people thought and he's taking blows to the face and nose and coming back to play. I have to agree with you and CR2. It's a matter of finding the right fit and situation for some players. They can be really good in another setting. However, I still think Dun does better without Murphy. It will be a task to build the Pacers into contenders and not pretenders.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (jason voorhees @ Mar 12 2008, 04:03 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Kensaku @ Mar 12 2008, 01:37 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Dunleavy is doing well still. He's in the right situation now.</div>

Yeah, I know. I got him on my fantasy team. He's doing better than people thought and he's taking blows to the face and nose and coming back to play. I have to agree with you and CR2. It's a matter of finding the right fit and situation for some players. They can be really good in another setting. However, I still think Dun does better without Murphy. It will be a task to build the Pacers into contenders and not pretenders.
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I got to ask myself why I suddenly turned from a Dun hater and Murphy lover in 2003 to a Dun admirer and Murphy hater in 2005. I hated Dunleavy's defense in 2003 because he would get beat all over. He was just so slow and weak. But, his offensive skill set was pretty darn impressive at times (behind the back dribbles, crossover moves, no look passes, movement off the ball). He got a lot of wooah's and oooh's when he could beat smaller players trying to pressure him in the open court.

Dunleavy disappeared a lot and couldn't hit a wide open outside jumper to save his life (unless it was a meaningless blowout loss or the game was a pile-on) so a lot of this overshadowed people's belief that he could be both an entertaining, effective win column type of player. To compound this, we had Barnett and every Duke fan hype him up so much when the guy clearly had no position in the nba because of his weaknesses at any one spot and he has no assertiveness (I guess we knew who were the real Duke stars - Jay Williams, Battier and Boozer).

Meanwhile, Murphy is touted to be this blue collar guy who is tough on the glass and has an above average offensive game that put up seriously good rebounding numbers. But with his ever growing tendency to shoot further and further away from the basket coupled with his matador defense and seeing the rest of his predictable game, I started looking passed the numbers. I realized some questions like when did Murphy make the extra pass, get the steal or help a teammate come up with the steal? When did Murphy do the extra off the ball movement, take the charge, move over to weakside help, box out, or make the extra hustle play that doesn't contribute to his own stats? This one season Murphy kept getting blocked by guys a foot smaller which was embarassing. I really don't remember Dunleavy getting stuffed as much by point guards like Murphy did. Plus, Dun does have those intangibles that Murphy doesn't do if we looked harder. Murphy seemed like such a stat whore at times. Double doubles from him weren't quite the same you got from guys like Erick Dampier or Kurt Thomas. The only times Murphy really moved his feet was when he got up for Tim Duncan and maybe a few other elite big men. He helps at rebounding, but he doesn't help anybody inside because our center at the time didn't play inside (Foyle). Yes, we could have played Biedrins at center a lot more than Foyle, but guess who left Biedrins highly exposed to foul trouble? Mostly Murphy and his lame defense. Barnes or Pietrus would have at least blocked the shot or worse case scenario fouled to save the layup.

Plus, I wish I could have experimented, but I really thought mediocre forwards going on career nights had more to do with Murphy's poor defensive coverage which caused guys to leave people open on the perimeter. If the guy could handle things inside, the perimeter guys wouldn't need to get sucked in so much. I mean we see this to some degree on the warriors when they play small and they got Al Harrington in there. I swear Al Harrington can be as stiff as Murphy sometimes, only not as bad, but you can see where not having defensive anchors in the paint leads to. It gets smaller guys going aggressively to the hole because they know our big guys won't do diddly squat to try and stop them.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Last six games.

PPG - 27.8
FG% - 51.9% (53-102)
3PT% - 47.4% (18-38)
FT% - 78.1% FT (43-55 - 7 made and 9 attempts/game)

And he was a +65.</div>

I started a thread about this last week. Not very many players are capable of putting together a stretch like this no matter what number option they are or how many shots they are allowed to take.

 

Another 36 point effort. Throwing out the salary and the past, you think Dunleavy playing at this level would help the Warriors now? Who would you pick to be replaced?