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OK, I know a lot of you are not a fan of statistical analysis, but I think no matter what they should offer us a sense of who they are as a player which we can refine through our eyes in our system.

Anyway....
1) Flip is 29... realistically, players have peaked by this point and in short order will begin to decline.

2) Flip has spent most of his career as a ~13 PER player. However, last year was one of his best, 14.7, indicating that under the right circumstances (i.e., a backup) he can definitely perform as an NBA average player. So I will take last year as a reasonable expectation as how good of a player he can be for us.

3) For most of his career he has been a thoroughly average in passing, TS%, and TO%.

4) What makes Flip unusual is that he achieved his average TS% with a relatively high usage rate... so perhaps he can improve on it further with a smaller offensive role as we'd expect him to take with the Bobcats. He also spent much of last year playing PG, so perhaps he has that sort of ability. Also, he has had a pretty great opponent PER for the past several years, often even when playing out of position... so he really might be a good defender, and he has a reputation for it.

5) Disadvantages: Terrible offensive rebounder, below-average defensive rebounder... doesn't always illustrate his defensive prowess through defensive +/-, especially when playing PG.

I'll try to look at his tendencies later... as in midrange vs. 3, etc.

I like this signing by the Bobcats. You're right, he is mainly a volume scorer but I assume LB's system will mask his weaknesses. They're a relatively good rebounding team and Brown has always raised his players' level of defense.

I know I wanted Cants and still think he would have been the better pick but the year he took over for Ray Allen in Seattle he played like an absolute stud.
I have compared those numbers to last year's numbers and they are the same. 12 points in 24 minutes.
Basically when he did get fulltime minutes in Seattle he was a 20 point a game scorer.
Maybe if the front office trades Bell which I really hope they do and go all in on Ronald Murray and give him his 35 minutes maybe he can be a 18-20 point a game scorer which is what we need on this team.

Dexmor wrote:I know I wanted Cants and still think he would have been the better pick but the year he took over for Ray Allen in Seattle he played like an absolute stud.
I have compared those numbers to last year's numbers and they are the same. 12 points in 24 minutes.
Basically when he did get fulltime minutes in Seattle he was a 20 point a game scorer.
Maybe if the front office trades Bell which I really hope they do and go all in on Ronald Murray and give him his 35 minutes maybe he can be a 18-20 point a game scorer which is what we need on this team.

So you want to totally give up our guard depth and put all our playoffs hopes on Flip Murray becoming an all star level player when he had to wait the entire summer to get a 1 year 2 mil deal?? He's a nice 7th man to have, but good lord man

I like the pickup. Solid backup guard that can play the 1 or 2. I like players, like Flip, that just play hard no matter what the situation. He can possibly have one of his best overall seasons with us. It does cut down on Henderson's minutes, but hopefully he will learn alot and it will help him in the long run.

GREAT Signing.

Murray is a big offensive threat, who can come off bench and make an impact immediatly. Apart from that, he's a veteran. Unlike McCants he has nothing to prove, and won't start b'tching around if his minutes are too limited.

12ppg on 24minutes, while shooting 45%/36%? Hell yeah!

Thanks for the breakdown Paydro. Flip gives us a quality backup who has shown he can produce decent numbers.

As for the idea of trading Bell, I'm still wondering if he could bring us 2 players from Golden State (Brandon Wright and Azubuike) if we also offered a future pick? Doubt it, as that type of deal would have been done by now if available.

I usually don’t post anything on here. Normally I just read the postings but I like this signing. I think if we can’t have a superstar on this team then we should really focus on depth. We played better last season because we had noticeable increase in coaching and depth. Flip gives us a solid option at 2 and a serviceable PG if Ray or DJ was to go down. We played well last season until we were hit with injures. Bell when down and DJ was bothered with the abdomen problem for the second half of the season. Hopefully we can get something out of Lexy or somebody at backup PF and we should be ok.

does this signing say anything about henderson? i dont think it does. i'm ok with letting a rookie sit and learn for a year. murray or bell isnt a long term solution, so there is no need to rush henderson's development.

then again, who knows, maybe henderson beats out murray for backup sg minutes.

This has nothing to do with Henderson. If you want to compete, you need depth. That's the main reason we signed him.

More scoring from the bench, and less midget backcourts with DJ at PG, and Ray at SG.

btw, look at this:

viewtopic.php?t=945830

i think this is a pretty good signing just one question: how much cap do we have left?

catsandheels wrote:i think this is a pretty good signing just one question: how much cap do we have left?

A million give or take. We have enough for a vet min guy but that's about it.

You guys know what I think. Now we can really trade Bell for future considerations.

GWallace3 wrote:This has nothing to do with Henderson. If you want to compete, you need depth. That's the main reason we signed him.

More scoring from the bench, and less midget backcourts with DJ at PG, and Ray at SG.

btw, look at this:

viewtopic.php?t=945830

I was just about to respond to Fats post when I saw you pretty much said everything I was going to say. The bottom line is, the best players will play, and if Henderson proves to be one of those players then LB will find minutes for him.

And you gotta love Knicks fans, they never look at the situation from the other teams POV. We're trying to win here and like you said, in order to compete during the regular season you need depth. Playoffs are different story.

Well, what the Murray signing does indicate is that we are not eager to play Henderson for a lot of minutes. It also might mean we see less (or at least not more) DJ, unless we're planning on playing Flip sparingly and Hendo not at all, or slashing Felton's minutes.

Shouldn't the same people who were upset about signing AI because of its effect on our young players' playing time be concerned about this as well?

Anyway, some other tidbits from looking back at Flip... he's legitimately a very good midrange jump shooter, and has been consistently around .400 or higher for recent seasons. His 3pt%, however, has usually been kinda crappy, (hovering around .300) until last season, which leads me to believe it's a fluke.

Also, Flip's assisted-by percentage is among the NBA's lowest on his jumper (long and midrange), and lowish on his close shots as well, suggesting that he can create his own shot and do well on it as well. That said, he doesn't really get to the foul line much, though maybe that's not so bad considering he's a career .724 FT% (we're in JRich territory here).

As far as his passing and handling, a more in-depth look does still suggest he's at least average for an SG, but maybe not much better than that. Last year in particular he had very disappointing production as a passer, and I think his role on the Hawks will be closer to his role here than when he played PG for Indiana/Detroit. Also, a byproduct of all that ballhandling to create his jumper seems to be a relative lot of turnovers, including bad pass TOs.

Paydro70 wrote:Well, what the Murray signing does indicate is that we are not eager to play Henderson for a lot of minutes. It also might mean we see less (or at least not more) DJ, unless we're planning on playing Flip sparingly and Hendo not at all, or slashing Felton's minutes.

Shouldn't the same people who were upset about signing AI because of its effect on our young players' playing time be concerned about this as well?

You are reading way too much into this signing. Like Gwallace3 said, this signing is about DEPTH. Thats it, you need depth in order to compete for 82 games. It doesn't mean we will see less or more of certain players, the players who make the team better as a 5 man unit will play. Individually speaking, If DJ is better than Ray, he will get more minutes, if Murray turns out better than Raja and Henderson, he will play more. If the team is better with Henderson on the court, HE WILL PLAY. You need team chemistry and you need depth. Because a player is better stat wise, doesn't mean he makes the TEAM better.

As for AI, it's totally different. Murray is a ROLE player who will be content coming off the bench, some nights 10 minutes other nights 25 plus when he's on or when other players get into foul trouble/matchup problems. AI is a selfish baby who needs minutes and the ball in his hands to be happy. If the team plays better when Henderson is on the court, do you think AI would be happy with his ass firmly planted on the bench watching a rookie? Uh no. AI only looks at individual numbers not the scoreboard. That is why he's in Memphis.

Sure, you don't like AI, you think it would have been a bad idea to sign him, blahblahblah.

The question was, if one reason not to sign AI, which some people on this board advanced (I don't remember you being one of them, I thought you were mostly concerned with AI's cancerous influence on them), is that playing time would be hard to come by for Henderson and/or DJ, why is the Flip Murray signing any different?

We signed Flip because we think he's better than Henderson, which is not at all surprising because Hendo is a rookie. What is the minutes breakdown going to look like? Probably something like 30 for Raja, 20 for Flip, and... 5 for Henderson? Even getting that 55 minutes of SG requires Flip to play some PG or Raja to play some SF, or both, and this is allowing zero minutes for Ray at SG. That of course means the PG breakdown would have to be something like 24/24, unless again Flip is playing PG, in which case it's less, maybe 22/22/4.

I guess we'll see what LB does, and as I said during the AI thread, I am totally unconcerned with Henderson's self-esteem, but I don't think we'd be paying Flip Murray $2m to play 10 minutes. That means we're probably seeing next to nothing of Henderson this year, and I'm not sure where the minutes are going to come from to see more of DJ, unless we totally slash Felton down to 20.

Paydro70 wrote:Sure, you don't like AI, you think it would have been a bad idea to sign him, blahblahblah.

The question was, if one reason not to sign AI, which some people on this board advanced (I don't remember you being one of them, I thought you were mostly concerned with AI's cancerous influence on them), is that playing time would be hard to come by for Henderson and/or DJ, why is the Flip Murray signing any different?

We signed Flip because we think he's better than Henderson, which is not at all surprising because Hendo is a rookie. What is the minutes breakdown going to look like? Probably something like 30 for Raja, 20 for Flip, and... 5 for Henderson? Even getting that 55 minutes of SG requires Flip to play some PG or Raja to play some SF, or both, and this is allowing zero minutes for Ray at SG. That of course means the PG breakdown would have to be something like 24/24, unless again Flip is playing PG, in which case it's less, maybe 22/22/4.

I guess we'll see what LB does, and as I said during the AI thread, I am totally unconcerned with Henderson's self-esteem, but I don't think we'd be paying Flip Murray $2m to play 10 minutes. That means we're probably seeing next to nothing of Henderson this year, and I'm not sure where the minutes are going to come from to see more of DJ, unless we totally slash Felton down to 20.

This is the best that you could come up with? Repeating and rephrasing the SAME questions over and over again, come on, this is not going to yield different answers.

And I just LOVE how you assume the reason why we signed Murray is because we think he's better than Henderson. Let me ask you a question...

How do YOU know or does anyone know whether or not Flip Murray will be better than Henderson? Please tell me this answer since Henderson has yet to play one minute in the NBA. Also, it's about individual skill sets and how they fit into your team as a 5 man unit, not about their individual fancy stat lines. So you can post all your fancy numbers til the cows come home and it doesn't mean a darn thing. Flip Murray has NEVER played one minute with THIS TEAM so you have NO CLUE how he will fit in. Nor does anyone else until he steps onto the court with Ray, Crash, TC, and whoever else is playing at the time.

And please drop the AI stuff already, it's irrelevant when talking about Murray. Two completely different players, roles and agenda. You know this already so why would you even bring it up? Bored...perhaps?

Same questions? Over and over? It's two posts with the same question. I brought it up because it was a point made against signing AI... that he would deprive our young players of playing time. I have heard no such concerns after the signing of Murray. I don't understand why that would be.

Your post honestly doesn't make much sense. What "fancy numbers" am I going to use for this situation? Henderson hasn't played, as you pointed out, so I have no stats whatsoever to use for him. All I'm talking about is our rotation. I don't know what it's going to be, but I'm pretty sure that the guy getting squeezed out is Henderson.

I think my logic is fairly easy to follow here. We had a 3 guard rotation last year, which meant heavy workloads for Bell and Felton. Then we drafted Henderson, who provides a 4th guard, meaning Bell could drop to maybe 30 minutes, with Henderson playing maybe 20 or so.

So why spend 2 million on another shooting guard, if we were comfortable playing Henderson for extensive minutes? Do you think LB wanted Murray so he can play 5 minutes per game or collect DNPs? Obviously, they signed him because they think he's going to play, and make the team better than it was prior to having him. The minutes he will be taking can't come from thin air, they have to come out of a shooting guard... which means Henderson and Bell.

I don't know if they're right or not. I would bet Flip Murray is better in 2009-10 than Henderson, and I don't think I'm going out on a limb with that statement... it's not very common for rookies to come in as NFL average players, which Flip is. But I am even more confident saying that the front office wants Flip Murray to play, and that he'll be playing over Henderson.

Here, let me ask the same question again... what do you think the minute breakdown will be?

Paydro70 wrote:Same questions? Over and over? It's two posts with the same question. I brought it up because it was a point made against signing AI... that he would deprive our young players of playing time. I have heard no such concerns after the signing of Murray. I don't understand why that would be.

Your post honestly doesn't make much sense. What "fancy numbers" am I going to use for this situation? Henderson hasn't played, as you pointed out, so I have no stats whatsoever to use for him. All I'm talking about is our rotation. I don't know what it's going to be, but I'm pretty sure that the guy getting squeezed out is Henderson.

I think my logic is fairly easy to follow here. We had a 3 guard rotation last year, which meant heavy workloads for Bell and Felton. Then we drafted Henderson, who provides a 4th guard, meaning Bell could drop to maybe 30 minutes, with Henderson playing maybe 20 or so.

So why spend 2 million on another shooting guard, if we were comfortable playing Henderson for extensive minutes? Do you think LB wanted Murray so he can play 5 minutes per game or collect DNPs? Obviously, they signed him because they think he's going to play, and make the team better than it was prior to having him. The minutes he will be taking can't come from thin air, they have to come out of a shooting guard... which means Henderson and Bell.

I don't know if they're right or not. I would bet Flip Murray is better in 2009-10 than Henderson, and I don't think I'm going out on a limb with that statement... it's not very common for rookies to come in as NFL average players, which Flip is. But I am even more confident saying that the front office wants Flip Murray to play, and that he'll be playing over Henderson.

Here, let me ask the same question again... what do you think the minute breakdown will be?

Didn't Gwallace3 already address this issue of why we signed Murray? Again, in case you skipped over it, Flip Murray provides depth. 82 games is a VERY long season and in order to compete over the course of an 82 game season, your backups have to be good because INJURIES always occur in the NBA. Murray can play the 1 and 2. So if either Bell, DJ or Ray go down, (which judging by their history, they will miss time at some point) Murray is more than capable of filling in. It really is that simple. It's all about having quality depth.

And being that Henderson is an unknown, obviously bringing in a veteran ROLE player like Murray covers you in case of injuries and or Henderson is not yet capable of providing quality minutes off the bench. Again, this is really simple. Not rocket science here in trying to figure out why we brought in Murray.

Murray is just another bullet for Larry Brown to fire. Same as Henderson. Wouldn't you rather go into a fight with a fully loaded gun than have a gun with only one round in the chamber?

The minutes will get sorted out as the season progresses. Again, you have no idea who will be healthy and who will gel as a 5 man unit. Now if we were a veteran championship contending team coming back intact and healthy, then obviously the roles are for the most part defined, but this is not the case here because we won only 35 games last season and our team is different heading into this season. Honestly I cannot fathom why you would pigeon hole players into roles/minutes when really at this time Larry Brown has no idea who will come ready to play this season. Great coaches don't play players based on what they did in the past, the past is the past, unless of course their superstars, great coaches will play players based on who gives the team the best chance to win on that particular night.