Murphy's Law

The website, realgm.com, has posted an article saying that Troy Murphy of the New Jersey Nets will most likely be traded (link here). Murphy lost his starting job to Kris Humphries, and now the Nets are looking to trade Murphy, who is owed $12 million in this, the last year of his contract.

Now, I know that Troy Murphy isn’t exactly a sexy name in the NBA, but this guy is exactly who the Suns need right now. Murphy is a tough, physical rebounder who can shoot from the outside. Take a peek at some of these statistics. In the past two years, Murphy was seventh and third in the league in Defensive Rebounding Rate, which measures the percentage of defensive rebounds grabbed by a player while he was on the court. Murphy also shot 46.7% from three last season in Indiana.

The Suns are currently last in the league in defensive rebounding, by a wide margin. Hedo Turkoglu is doing a horrendous job of rebounding grabbing only 3.7 rebounds per game. Channing Frye is the team’s leading rebounder at only 5.4 per game, and has come off the bench for the majority of games this season. Starting small forward, Grant Hill, is next on the team with 4.9 per game.

Making a move to land Murphy would make perfect sense for this team right now. Murphy is a great defensive rebounder, he fits into the Suns system very well, in that his is an above-average outside shooter, and his defense is underrated, boasting a defensive rating of only 103 last season (according to basketball-reference.com). According to David Berri’s Wins Produced metric, Murphy rated as the most valuable player by far on the Indiana Pacers last season contributing 14.1 wins for a team that only won 32 games.

I’m sure that the Suns brass are cautious about admitting failure only ten games into the season, but so far this acquisition of Hedo Turkoglu is turning into a complete nightmare. Not only are the Suns getting blistered on the offensive glass, but Goran Dragic is not nearly as impactful when Turkoglu is on the floor. The new front office should take a lesson from former GM, Steve Kerr, and cut ties with Turkoglu before the season blows up entirely. A straight-up trade of Murphy for Turkoglu will not solve all of the Suns problems, but it will at least improve the Suns defense and rebounding. New Jersey should be all in for this trade too, a proven go-to scorer in the clutch to go along with their young front-court of Derrick Favors and Brook Lopez would be a great addition. It’s a win-win, and if the Suns end up bottoming out and not making the playoffs then they can allow Murphy to leave via free agency and use that money elsewhere to once again try to replace Amare Stoudemire’s production. This trade isn’t quite as intriguing as bringing in my new man crush, Josh Smith, from the Hawks. But a trade for Smith would likely need to include Dragic to be worthwhile for Atlanta. Come on Lon Babby and Lance Blanks, take one for the team, even if it is a shot to your pride.

Murphy's Basketball-reference.com bio

Murphy's Hoopdata.com bio