Monty pretty much exclusively uses him as a defensive C. This is horrible for him because hes extremely undersized for a C and his only asset that separates him from the other guys on the team is that he has an offensive game. He just isnt producing because he isnt touching the ball and he isnt playing because he isnt prodcing, but hes not in a position to produce right now.
Diogu's going to get more minutes eventually. I mean why wouldn't he? He was hand selected by Mullin like Montgomery was. The biggest problem is if Mullin's trying to create tradeable assets, we need to play certain players, get them on the radar, and then find a good trade partner willing to take them on. We gave up two 2nd rnd. draft picks for Zarko. If we want to get something back for him, we better play him and get his numbers up like last year when he shot 50-60% for an entire month. The other guy blocking Diogu from getting some burn is Murphy. But Murphy is always statistically impressive and Diogu might not be able to fill in his shoes right away just like when Jamison was when he was shipped out to make room for Dunleavy Jr. If we want to have a good chance at a winning season and give our rookies some development time, we need to be more consistent as a team, find a good balance where we can give minutes to consistent, proven players and then find some minutes for the younger guys. The Warriors don't want to unload talent at the wrong times and then say we need to make the playoffs when we don't know if our rookies can even carry us there. Ike looks awesome, but there's a lot we don't know about him yet versus Murphy. I'd rather us get something of value and that can fill an immediate need. It's like what the Bucks did to land Jamaal Magloire. Even though Mags stats suck this year with turnovers, he still is a talented big body in the paint. He protects Andrew Bogut in case Bogut is struggling. I'd love it if we could get Marcus Camby or some running center. I doubt we get anything that can bruise down low.
After watching the Dallas game, it's not Murphy that is holding Diogu from getting minutes at the 4, but it's also Dunleavy. Dunleavy played a lot of minutes at the 4 against the Mavs. And people wonder why the rebounding isn't up to par. Too much small lineups. Time to change it up. And gee, Diogu is a bit small. It's hard to tell if the player in the paint is a perimeter player or a post player when he has the ball down there in traffic. That's the way it looked against Devan George at least.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Clif25:</div><div class="quote_post">After watching the Dallas game, it's not Murphy that is holding Diogu from getting minutes at the 4, but it's also Dunleavy. Dunleavy played a lot of minutes at the 4 against the Mavs. And people wonder why the rebounding isn't up to par. Too much small lineups. Time to change it up. And gee, Diogu is a bit small. It's hard to tell if the player in the paint is a perimeter player or a post player when he has the ball down there in traffic. That's the way it looked against Devan George at least.</div> All true. Ike IS good inside but the pseudo-center stuff took away the mobility he uses to good effect. Having him in a standstill lowpost is not effective,he's real good at a quick post up,at facing up and beating his man.. There is no real reason Murphy can't learn to play C like Brad Miller,Okur,ZaZa,or J Foster. He's got equal size,mobility. Ike,posting out of a more mobile PF role would be more effective,and Murphy,slipping outside would be pulling a C out of the paint.
While it's also true that REREM/Clif pointed out that Dunleavy has been playing the 4, I think it's only because the team needs a distributor. Baron Davis, Fisher, Jrich, Murphy all want to score at times. And for Ike to be effective he needs the ball in his hands or to at least know he's going to get it moving off the ball. He also needs to know where to look if he's getting doubled or tripled. Sometimes the rookies don't always get the call, you know? There were some guys in the game last night that looked like they were uprooting him or getting away with all kinds of fouls on him. Also, I disagree that Murphy would work at center unless he changes a few things in his game. He just doesn't do enough of the little things that equate to big things. It's no wonder we can't even rebound the ball when the other team misses the free throw. He doesn't put his body in front to box out for other people to get the miss. He's just playing selfish when it comes to certain things at times. "Oh the rebound isn't coming my way, well I'm going to stand still since it's not my problem". Well... I don't think that's his attitude, maybe it's fatigue, but it's a problem when you notice him not putting the fundamentals in place to make his team better. If you look at Foyle and some these other less outstanding guys, they at least do the things that don't show up on a stat sheet so other guys can get theirs. We need big man fundamentals. Too many finesse guys more suited for small forward and raw big guys with no bball I.Q. or size.
Agreed with all of you guys. Murphy can play C but he would have to change his game alot. He has the ability to rebound with the best of them but he doesnt want to box out because hes a stat whore. If he boxes out then another of our players could get the rebound, he'd rather risk it and just run to the ball, which is why our team rebounds better with Ike who always takes at least one of the opposing big men out of the rebound battle. Murphy would also need to be a better help defender and post defender, he doesnt have to block shots but as long as he can buy some time for our other defenders to recover he'd be fine. Also, a system that is made for our roster would probably benefit everyone but Monty would rather do his crappy college system rather than adjusting to the players.
