The Hawks Backcourt: Trae and Dejounte

[Spud2nique]

On 9/6/2022 at 7:14 PM, JayBirdHawk said:

 

 

Why not both Burd adopted by Trae  

[Spud2nique]

21 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

How did I miss they have the same birthday?

I don’t know cuz you liked my lil nugget featuring this info a while back.  

[JayBirdHawk]

1 hour ago, Spud2nique said:

I don’t know cuz you liked my lil nugget featuring this info a while back.  

 I guess memory isn't what it used to be.

[Spud2nique]

1 hour ago, JayBirdHawk said:

 I guess memory isn't what it used to be.

Don’t I know it. 

Same.

[MarylandHawk]

11 hours ago, Spud2nique said:

Why not both Burd adopted by Trae  

I want to know who was the point guard on Trae’s HS teams. Must have been a bad mofo to push Trae to the two. 

[JayBirdHawk]

This first play - can't wait to see Murray to OO in the PnR.

 

 

[sturt]

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...

 

[Spud2nique]

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...

 

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. 

[sturt]

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...

 

[JTB]

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...

 

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.

[sturt]

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.

[Diesel]

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. 

[JTB]

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.

[benhillboy]

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...

 

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.

[sturt]

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.

[RedDawg#8]

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.

[Diesel]

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.

[Diesel]

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. 

 

 

[sturt]

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.

[sturt]

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.