Camden wrote:TeamRicky wrote:I like Poeltl 100 times better than Jamal Murray. Poeltl can play good defense and Murray, well he is a horrible defender, almost as bad as Bazz. Also Murray is ball dominant and we don't need his ball hogging ways when we have 3 young guys to feed. He'd clash with our young guys the way Dion Waiters did in Cleveland. I'd rather Gary Payton II than Murray (even though Murray is mocked much higher) as Gary is not an alpha scorer like Murray, but sure can defend well and pass the ball.
I sure hope we can learn the lessons that KMart and Bazz have taught us. Players that are ball dominant and can't defend are not a good fit in our regular rotation.
He's not even ball dominant at Kentucky so I'm not sure where you're getting that idea from. Here's the thing: I feel like you haven't watched much of Murray with the way you talk about him and you have these ideas about him that you feel are right in your head, but they don't match with what's happened on the court. I'm not taking a jab at you here because there's a ton of prospects and not every game is accessible to everyone. The Murray to Waiters comparison is way, way off, though.
Murray plays mostly off-ball at Kentucky. Ulis runs the show. Part of what makes Murray so good is his ability to come off screens, square up and drain threes. That's part of the scouting report with that guy. If you ask almost anyone who follows Wildcat basketball, they'd also tell you that Murray isn't handling the ball enough. That seems to agree with what I thought about him too in that his point guard abilities offensively haven't been displayed enough this season. He's not being used the same way he was during the 2015 Pan Ams where he shredded the competition with scoring and facilitating despite being years younger than practically everyone there.
Calipari also has a track record of misusing guys so that they'll develop in other areas of their games. Most recently, we saw that with Towns, but also with Booker. Did you see any of that ball-handling and passing ability from Booker in college? I sure didn't and I watched just about every game of theirs when I was infatuated with Towns.
Point being, I think you're misjudging Murray and overvaluing other guys.
Well, I'm not sure if he's mis-using them or simply views them in roles that are more narrowly defined because he knows that they can dominate in one or two facets of the game and has just as much talent covering the other facets. For example, who needs Murray to handle the ball a bunch when he's got Ulis? Who needs KAT to hit jumpers when he's got Booker? Who needs Booker to handle the ball when he has experienced upperclassmen to do it?
But point well taken. One thing we need to do is look back at a player's prep/AAU/national team body of work and see what else they have in their tool bag. This seems to apply to Kentucky prospects more than most, so I am open-minded to the idea that Murray has more to offer. But boy, those jumpers coming off of screens look NBA-ready don't they?
(still a little worried about his size and defense).
