Jump to content
  • Current Donation Goals

    • Raised $440 of $700 target

The Hawks Backcourt: Trae and Dejounte


JayBirdHawk

Recommended Posts

  • Premium Member

Fields suggested today that we should be slow to judge the new backcourt, and I think other similar cautions have been put to print recently though I honestly forget who uttered them. There is a prevailing wind that Murray won't be used to playing opposite another guard who is generally regarded as an offense-first asset.

It would surprise me.

In 2020-21, the Spurs' three best performing 5-man line-ups had in-common Patty Mills and Dejounte Murray in the backcourt. And we're talking big numbers...

 

2022-09-23_19-36-16.png

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, sturt said:

Fields suggested today that we should be slow to judge the new backcourt, and I think other similar cautions have been put to print recently though I honestly forget who uttered them. There is a prevailing wind that Murray won't be used to playing opposite another guard who is generally regarded as an offense-first asset.

It would surprise me.

In 2020-21, the Spurs' three best performing 5-man line-ups had in-common Patty Mills and Dejounte Murray in the backcourt. And we're talking big numbers...

 

2022-09-23_19-36-16.png

I don’t think there’s gonna be any issue whatsoever. I think they will mesh better than any two have in recent years. 
 

Having said that, both Trae and Murray are alphas and they gotta get on the same page a bit there. 
 

I just can’t think of any free agent brought in recently that meshed that well right away. Butler in Miami? I dunno but DM ready and Trae been ready. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

Think the heart of the issue is the combination of new-ness with the idea that Murray's most recently been played primarily at the 1. And it's true, you don't see a lot of great backcourts in NBA history that consisted of two guys who both are considered PGs as they start their on-court relationship.

This is really the only one I can think of--ie, that, from the start, were both lead guards, and formed arguably the league's most lethal backcourt...

chris-paul-james-harden-ftr-082018jpg_ue

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, sturt said:

Think the heart of the issue is the combination of new-ness with the idea that Murray's most recently been played primarily at the 1. And it's true, you don't see a lot of great backcourts in NBA history that consisted of two guys who both are considered PGs as they start their on-court relationship.

This is really the only one I can think of--ie, that, from the start, were both lead guards, and formed arguably the league's most lethal backcourt...

chris-paul-james-harden-ftr-082018jpg_ue

 

Yeah but how many have truly even come together once they established a name for themselves ?

it’s not like we have seen a ton either to give real true judgement. Outside of the two you mentioned I guess perhaps Nash and Kidd should be on the list but if memory serves me right Kidd wasn’t an established star when he was with the mavs however from an offensive standpoint they both did pretty damn well judging the stats. I can really recall how Kidd and Nash played together I barely remember honestly. I’m sure the defense was probably trash though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
1 hour ago, JTB said:

Kidd wasn’t an established star when he was with the mavs

Yeah, no... if you'll look, they never played together when both were highly regarded.

1 hour ago, JTB said:

it’s not like we have seen a ton either to give real true judgement.

This is true.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
1 hour ago, JTB said:

Yeah but how many have truly even come together once they established a name for themselves ?

it’s not like we have seen a ton either to give real true judgement. Outside of the two you mentioned I guess perhaps Nash and Kidd should be on the list but if memory serves me right Kidd wasn’t an established star when he was with the mavs however from an offensive standpoint they both did pretty damn well judging the stats. I can really recall how Kidd and Nash played together I barely remember honestly. I’m sure the defense was probably trash though.

Harden & Paul

Harden & Kyrie

Knight and Sessions

Nash and Kidd

Price and Brandon

Anybody who played with Jason Terry. 

There have been a couple of PG tandems. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

47 minutes ago, Diesel said:

Harden & Paul

Harden & Kyrie

Knight and Sessions

Nash and Kidd

Price and Brandon

Anybody who played with Jason Terry. 

There have been a couple of PG tandems. 

We are talking star tandems only though. Some of these guys shouldn’t be on your list.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, sturt said:

Fields suggested today that we should be slow to judge the new backcourt, and I think other similar cautions have been put to print recently though I honestly forget who uttered them. There is a prevailing wind that Murray won't be used to playing opposite another guard who is generally regarded as an offense-first asset.

It would surprise me.

In 2020-21, the Spurs' three best performing 5-man line-ups had in-common Patty Mills and Dejounte Murray in the backcourt. And we're talking big numbers...

 

2022-09-23_19-36-16.png

I assumed Jacob Poetl could shoot for some reason.  After checking his stats he doesn’t and he can’t.  That boy be piling up O boards tho.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
8 hours ago, JTB said:

We are talking star tandems only though. Some of these guys shouldn’t be on your list.

Yep.

Mark Price and Terrell Brandon stuck out to me b/c I couldn't recall if they actually (a) were stars at the same time, and (b) routinely were deployed as a tandem. Turns out, no, and no, are the correct answers as I go back to look.

Harden and Kyrie would have been a comp, but of course, that was an especially short-lived pairing.

 

So how about these.

Within my NBA fan lifetime, I find two instances of two legit lead guards who ended up being all-stars together at the same time.

Thomas and Dumars.

West and Goodrich.

 

And of those two, Dumars, of course, was drafted and developed under Daly... Thomas was already there.

So, really, other than Paul/Harden, Goodrich/West is the best example of something we can hope for... Goodrich having been obtained in trade from PHX which had used him as their primary PG. Of the two, only the latter, of course, won a championship together (1972).

(Yes, it was Goodrich's 2nd go-round with the Lakers, but in his first stint, he hadn't really distinguished himself.)

 

And if this is successful, as far as I would know, this would mark the first time in NBA history that two PGs who had already been All-Stars w/o the benefit of playing together combined their talents to win the big prize.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As much as I love the Isiah/Dumars comp, I’m not sure we even need examples to prove it can work. Playing Devils advocate, there’s not much data available to prove it can’t/won’t work either.

So, the beautiful reality that we are left with is we can do something that’s never really been done before, and write our own story. We can stop saying we are the Spurs East, Warriors East, etc… and just be the Atlanta Hawks with two top tier playmaking guards that are in their prime and keep the pressure on defenses for 48 nonstop minutes.

I like the sound of that much better than hoping we can imitate any examples from the past.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
10 hours ago, JTB said:

We are talking star tandems only though. Some of these guys shouldn’t be on your list.

That's assuming Murray is a star.  If we take Sessions/Knight off the list... all of these others have been to an allstar game just like Murray.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
1 hour ago, sturt said:

Yep.

Mark Price and Terrell Brandon stuck out to me b/c I couldn't recall if they actually (a) were stars at the same time, and (b) routinely were deployed as a tandem. Turns out, no, and no, are the correct answers as I go back to look.

Harden and Kyrie would have been a comp, but of course, that was an especially short-lived pairing.

 

So how about these.

Within my NBA fan lifetime, I find two instances of two legit lead guards who ended up being all-stars together at the same time.

Thomas and Dumars.

West and Goodrich.

 

And of those two, Dumars, of course, was drafted and developed under Daly... Thomas was already there.

So, really, other than Paul/Harden, Goodrich/West is the best example of something we can hope for... Goodrich having been obtained in trade from PHX which had used him as their primary PG. Of the two, only the latter, of course, won a championship together (1972).

(Yes, it was Goodrich's 2nd go-round with the Lakers, but in his first stint, he hadn't really distinguished himself.)

 

And if this is successful, as far as I would know, this would mark the first time in NBA history that two PGs who had already been All-Stars w/o the benefit of playing together combined their talents to win the big prize.

See, Sturt.. you made me look it up.

Brandon and Price were the top two assist leaders and 1 and 3 scorers for the Cavs in 1994.  Brandon wasn't an allstar that year, but he was the next two years.  Still, he put up good nimbers playing beside price. 


Prior to Brandon, 

 

I believe it was Price, Kerr, and Ehlo....   But Kerr wasn't an allstar. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
28 minutes ago, Diesel said:

Brandon and Price were the top two assist leaders and 1 and 3 scorers for the Cavs in 1994.

My point to that would be, and forgive me for failing to say so already... they weren't starters together. One subbed in for the other. So, that's a different thing.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member
48 minutes ago, RedDawg#8 said:

As much as I love the Isiah/Dumars comp, I’m not sure we even need examples to prove it can work. Playing Devils advocate, there’s not much data available to prove it can’t/won’t work either.

So, the beautiful reality that we are left with is we can do something that’s never really been done before, and write our own story. We can stop saying we are the Spurs East, Warriors East, etc… and just be the Atlanta Hawks with two top tier playmaking guards that are in their prime and keep the pressure on defenses for 48 nonstop minutes.

I like the sound of that much better than hoping we can imitate any examples from the past.

TomAE-toooooooooooooooooooooooe.......................

2 hours ago, sturt said:

And if this is successful, as far as I would know, this would mark the first time in NBA history that two PGs who had already been All-Stars w/o the benefit of playing together combined their talents to win the big prize.

Tom-MAH-toooooooooooooooooooooooe.

🙂

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...