Sports Page Atlanta

Do not be fooled by Flip Murray’s 2005-2006 season, where he averaged 13.5 points on 45% shooting, including several 25-plus point games. The six-year veteran sports a career average of 9 points per game with a 41% field goal percentage. He doesn’t shoot threes very well (28% career) and, while listed as a point guard, he averages only 2 assists per game in his career while averaging 22 minutes a game.

The acquisition of Murray for the Hawks is nothing more than filler to complete a 12-man roster. He had a good end to last year for an abysmal Pacers team (starting 15 games and averaging 11 points a game), but he doesn’t fill any need for the Hawks. They’ve got Bibby starting and the up and coming Acie Law (well, if Mike Woodson would ever play him) as a backup. Even beyond that, Salim Stoudamaire has done a decent job coming in for a couple minutes at a time and hitting threes.

Flip Murray is not a big man (where we desperately need a back-up for Horford who isn’t Zaza or Randolph Morris) and he isn’t any better than the plethora of back-up small guys we had. He won’t replace Josh Childress as an energy bench player. Ideally, he’ll compete for garbage minutes with Mario West. Of course, I expect Woodson to have him playing over Acie Law. Whee.

Contract details are still forthcoming.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 11:59 am and is filed under Atlanta Hawks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.