<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">San Francisco Chronicle - Troy Murphy is feeling comfortable at center and finding that it isn't a whole lot different than his role last year, as he often was the trailer at the power forward position under Mike Montgomery. "He's where he's supposed to be; he knows all the plays, all the assignments, and he's played very well," said Don Nelson. "I had help guarding power forwards, too," Murphy said. "I'm going to do the best I can to make it difficult for centers to catch the ball where they want it, and we're going to be crisp with the way we rotate defensively and get the ball out of his hands."</div> Link
If I were Murphy I would love the position Nelson is putting him in. There isn't a center in the league that can guard him man to man and his offensive numbers should go up. He isnt expected to stop opposing centers without help so the responsibility will be on the team, not one player.
Murphy is Murphy, and we know what we are getting. He will make jumpers, spread floors, drive in, and get 10 rebounds. In other hand, he will not block shots, post up and control the middle. I have to say I am nervous with Dunleavy-Murphy in the middle. There is no way Dunleavy will guard any PF in one on one situation, and to make things worse, Murphy is definitely not a 'center' who will provide a help defense. There will be a lot of trap and help from other sides, but good passing team will probably slice our defense with inside-outside offense. Hopefully, we can score enough points to overcome our defense problem...
He went 3-10 from the field and no blocked shots. I would not call that comfortable. Beans had 12 rebounds and 4 blocked shots along with a cool 3-5. That is comfortable. If Biedrens just makes his free throws, he will be ok...
If Beans doesn't get major minutes, I'll bet the Ws finish last in blocks. Overall though, I think that what nelson is doing with the frontline will work better than the last couple years. And when Ike and Beans are ready for starters' minutes (i think beans is close right now), we'll have a pleasant problem on our hands.
<div class="quote_poster">Kwan1031 Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">Murphy is Murphy, and we know what we are getting. He will make jumpers, spread floors, drive in, and get 10 rebounds. In other hand, he will not block shots, post up and control the middle. I have to say I am nervous with Dunleavy-Murphy in the middle. There is no way Dunleavy will guard any PF in one on one situation, and to make things worse, Murphy is definitely not a 'center' who will provide a help defense. There will be a lot of trap and help from other sides, but good passing team will probably slice our defense with inside-outside offense. Hopefully, we can score enough points to overcome our defense problem...</div> Werd. I love Murphy's dominant defensive rebounding, but Murphy is not that comfortable playing defense or making plays for other guys. Maybe this will change in Nelson's offense since Murphy was never counted on to be creative in the first place. That is Baron and Dunleavy's job, but of those two I don't know who is the better shooter. We certainly know that Baron can blow by anyone on one on one isolations and cause double teams, whereas Dunleavy has no quickness or strength against small forwards and cannot attract double teams. I think both those two and Jrich would benefit from having guys that can dominate down low. That's why I'm such in favor of Diogu or at least Biedrins/POB/Taft potential. A big man that can shoot from far is always covetted, but I think those kinds of players need to do more or they end up being Matt Bonner or Pat Garrity. It's great if we have those guys at power forward, but we need a real center that can do damage down low. Too few of those unfortunately. Maybe things would have been different if we were finally poor enough to get a high pick in the draft to land somebody like Dwight Howard or Emeka Okafor or Yao Ming. Actually 2002 we got screwed, but... it's not the first time. Luckily not too many 2002 big man picks blew up except for Amare Stoudamire, who did not work out for us. As for Murphy? Man I'd rather have Okur who at least has some post up game and can block some shots. As poor as Okur was on defense, at least he showed something when he played for the Pistons.
