FanHouse Flip Murray

FanHouse fixes a decade of draft-day blunders in Revisiting the NBA Draft.

The 2002 NBA Draft is filled with what ifs. What if Jason Williams had decided not to jump on that motorcycle? What if DaJuan Wagner had been physically able to withstand the rigors of the NBA? What if NBA scouts weren't so enamored with European prospects?

This is a draft of major successes -- Amare Stoudemire, Yao Ming, Carlos Boozer -- and abject failures -- Marcus Haislip, Nikoloz Tskitishvili, Frank Williams. And the 2002 class will be best known for not being the 2003 class, perhaps the best in league history. Yao was perhaps the most mysterious No. 1 pick of all time. Few knew more than he was 7-foot-6 and from China.

And what followed Yao was a bunch of question marks, kids who left school too early and unknown international players. The result was an uneven draft that will go down more for its misses than hits.

Perhaps inspired by watching a pair of road teams steal home court advantage on Monday, the Hawks came into Tuesday's game in Cleveland with no fear -- and for at least the first two quarters, the game looked like it'd probably go to whichever team got hot near the end.

Unfortunately for the Hawks, the first two quarters was all the time the Cavs needed to shake off nine days of rust, as Cleveland's modest five-point lead at halftime exploded into a 27-point lead by the final buzzer.

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The Miami Heat made it official on Wednesday. They're the worst team remaining in the NBA playoffs. That's just one conclusion you can draw after Atlanta won Game 5 over Miami 106-91 to go up 3-2 in the series.

How can the Heat be anything other than the worst team remaining when they came into the playoffs as an underdog and, now, Dwyane Wade is not 100 percent? Hey, it's just another way of saying that coach Erik Spoelstra is doing a great coaching job.

Miami was down 23 points at halftime, and the only reason to watch the remaining 24 was to find out who was going to commit the next hard foul and who was going to be on the receiving end of it.

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Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the "lig." Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.

Everyone knows that Flip Murray exists only in flashes. Everyone talks about "streak shooters," but Flip is actually a "streak human." He'll go a good 10, 12 days not even in existence. And then poof! he's the leading scorer for a playoff team for a week.

Flip's alive right now, y'all, racking up 30 points and five assists in a romp over Minnesota Monday night. He's averaging 24 points over his last three games. The three games before that? 23 points ... total.

Every night there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the "lig." Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.

The Hawks rode a sterling six-game win streak into Cleveland, hoping to add with a booster of confidence, provided (as expected) that the Hawks get a shot at the Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference second round this spring. Cleveland denies your request of a confidence booster, thankyouverymuch, next in line please.

LeBron James went with 22 points, seven rebounds, five assists, three steals and one block. Mo Williams picked the 24 points, seven assists route instead. Flip Murray (22 points off the bench) called a band meeting, but only Joe Johnson (24 points) showed up.

Earlier this week we heard news out of Atlanta that Josh Smith was throwing things around after being called out by Mike Woodson in practice. Is Woodson already losing his best player before the season starts? Hardly. Smith told reporters the next day that his reaction was orchestrated to get a rise out of everyone.

Practical joke or not, it seems he took the message to heart: he scored the first bucket last night on an alley-oop just seconds after the Hawks won the tip, and he immediately came through on the other end with a block. After the game, I spoke to him about the heightened expectations that come with signing a big contract.

Matt Watson: In the first 30 seconds you came through with an alley-oop and a block. Were you trying to come out and make a statement, or did it just work out that way?

Josh Smith: The lob worked out that way, but I definitely wanted to bring more energy. I know when I create energy from the beginning of the game that it carries on to my teammates. You know, we sat down and had a talk about what [coach Woodson] wanted me to do and I let him know that I was frustrated, because I felt like I was letting my teammates down. I understand that its preseason, but it definitely carries over to the regular season. And I wanted to come out here with great intensity -- you [saw] in the first couple of quarters that it carried on that everybody was active on the defensive end. We looked more active than we did throughout the whole preseason in this one game.

Thanks to the good folks in the Phoenix Suns' communications department, I was courtside for the team's pre-season opener against the Hawks. Being the first game of the pre-season, it was mostly just local media in attendance, who apparently had no interest in Hawks' coach Mike Woodson's post-game remarks. When he came out of the locker room, it was just me, esteemed writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Sekou Smith, and a media rep for the Suns that were waiting for him. Needless to say, it was the perfect opportunity to ask the coach a few questions about the game (and frankly, it would have been weird if I didn't.) Here are coach Woodson's (very brief) post-game comments:

Brett Edwards: You left Marvin [Williams] out there longer than usual, were you just trying to get him more work?

Mike Woodson: I was trying to get him more work, and I knew I wasn't going to play Joe [Johnson] and [Mike] Bibby many minutes, so, you gotta have one of those guys on the floor, Marvin, or Josh Smith to go along with the new guys. But Mo [Maurice Evans], Mo would have taken up seven or eight minute that Marvin got coming down the stretch probably, if he hadn't gotten hurt.

BE: What happened to Mo?

MW: He got an elbow (points to above his eye), he needed to get some stitches.

BE: The first half it seemed like you guys took a lot of outside shots, which maybe lead to the low field goal percentage?

MW: Which I don't like.

BE: Yeah, did you talk to them about that at halftime?

Rasheed Wallace is a funny guy. From Krista Jahnke of the Detroit Free Press:

Just a funny thing to note about the Pistons pregame introduction. Next time, watch Rasheed Wallace. After they call his name and he gives his love to the crowd, he turns, high-fives a few of his teammates and then chest-bumps the air. Why? Because that's where Ronald "Flip" Murray used to be. He's chest-bumping an invisible Flip Murray.

Murray, of course, spent a season and a half with the Pistons before being released in February and finishing out the season with the Pacers. I never realized Wallace and Murray were so tight, but perhaps he's just a man who loves his routine. Ray Allen could appreciate that.

Other Sheed hi-jinks from last night's win over the Celtics include playfully putting James Posey in a choke-hold in the first half and singing along to the in-arena music by belting out "Paradise City" lyrics moments before in-bounding the ball on one of the last plays of the game. On a less funny note, he also picked up his fifth technical foul of the offseason, which means that he's two away from a mandatory one-game suspension.

Had the Pistons lost, he'd be chastised for "not being focused." Instead, we'll laud him for "staying loose." But really, he's the lone constant -- the only thing that ever changes is how we all perceive him.

It's pretty hard to pile on Rasheed Wallace after the numbers he put up in his team's Game 1 loss to the Sixers. His stat line of 24 points, nine rebounds and seven blocks was pretty much the only one in the Pistons' box score that looked like it came from someone who knew that this was a playoff game. But heading into the Sixers' huddle -- when your team's down two with 11 seconds to play -- didn't exactly give me the confidence that 'Sheed was focused on the task at hand.

If the situation was reversed, and the Sixers were the ones who needed to score, I can see why it might be beneficial to try to get in their heads by interrupting their huddle like that. But with your team down, shouldn't you be more focused on whatever play you're about to run to try to tie the game?

This was a microcosm of what was going on with the entire Pistons' team all day. They repeatedly had conversations with their former teammate Flip Murray during the game, who was sitting courtside. No one doubts that the Pistons have more talent than a Sixers team that finished with a sub-.500 record, but their focus might be worse than some teams who didn't even make the playoffs.

When I think of the words "career-ending injury," I picture a basketball player suffering a grotesque knee injury or a football player taking a vicious hit that leaves him paralyzed. Sometimes, though, these things just kind of creep up on you, as in the case of Troy Hudson and his sore hip. From the San Francisco Chronicle (via BallHype):

"I think Troy's probably done," coach Don Nelson said after Tuesday's shootaround. "I don't think he'll play again. I'm serious. It's unfortunate, but he has a hip problem, and I haven't heard a second opinion, but it doesn't look good for him.

"He's going to have to have a new hip as he gets older, but we're quite concerned about him being able to play again. Right now, we're talking maybe four to six weeks off and then check again. But he has some spurs on his hip and arthritic conditions and it's just not a positive for him."

Hudson's doctor did suggest surgery to remove the spurs, but Hudson is reluctant considering the ensuing 18 months would most likely end his NBA career. He's going to seek a second and third opinion, but no matter what happens, it doesn't look good. The Warriors, meanwhile, are in a crunch without a backup point guard. Nelson isn't sure if they'll be adding another player anytime soon, but if they do, there are a handful of offensive minded point guards available on the free agent market (Earl Boykins) and trading block (Flip Murray?) who'd probably fit right into Golden State's style of play.