I'm speaking, of course, about Larry Murphy.
Mr. Murphy was an offensive minded defenceman who was traded to the Leafs in 1995 in exchange for young blueliner Dmitri Mironov and a 2nd round pick.
Despite nearly identical production to the year before in Pittsburgh (0.74 points per game in 94-95 compared to 0.79 points per game in 95-96), Murphy was booed mercilessly in Toronto. He was quickly run out of town and was traded to Detroit for future considerations just a year later.
I bring this up for two reasons.
1. I attended the disaster that was the Oklahoma City game. I heard the boos rain down on Hedo Turkoglu, and I heard the (mostly uneducated) hecklers focus their taunts on Toronto's big off-season acquisition.
These fans are booing Turkoglu for the same reason Toronto fans booed Murphy 15 years ago: Totally unrealistic expectations.
I have no idea whether this is a problem unique to Toronto or if it's a problem that afflicts all sports towns. But fans in this city always become totally unrealistic about high-priced talent. Let me try to explain:
If Player A has performed at level X for a number of seasons, and he comes to Toronto at the age of 28 or 30 or 32, let me tell you something... that player isn't getting any better. Level X is the BEST you can hope for for that player, and chances are you will get something much lower than level X.
What is difficult to accept for most of the paying public is that in professional sports, you have to overpay to acquire veteran talent. Free agency ensures this. The public doesn't understand this.
Before I move on to reason #2, let's hammer away at the one key area where I know people disagree with me. "But Turkoglu has been soooooo bad Chris, you've said it yourself!" Ya, but how much different has this season been for Turkoglu compared to last?
- He shot 41% from the field last season; shooting 41% this season
- He shot 36% from three-point last season; shooting 38% this season
- He took 5.4 3s per 40 mins last season; taking 5.1 per 40 mins this season
- Last season, his rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks added up to 12.3 per 40 mins
- This season, his rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks add up to 12.3 per 40 mins
I can't emphasize this strongly enough. I know how frustrated Raptor fans are with Hedo Turkoglu, but he's giving you exactly what you saw from him last season. And I know that most of you were happy when he signed on the dotted line.
Which brings me to my 2nd point: After Toronto fans patted themselves on the back for running Larry Murphy out of town, a funny thing happened... he played amazingly well for two Stanley Cup winning teams in Detroit. In fact, check this out, it's my stat of the day (and it's not even basketball... bonus points because I still found a way to incorporate plus/minus)
NHL LEADERS
PLAYOFF PLUS/MINUS - 1997 & 1998
Larry Murphy +28
Nicklas Lidstrom +24
Martin Lapointe +14
Steve Yzerman +13
Brendan Shanahan +13
Igor Larionov +13
(of note: Murphy (26) and Lidstrom (27) had nearly identical point totals as well)
So all of a sudden, outside of the hotbed of Toronto, Larry Murphy suddenly isn't a stiff who can't play hockey. He arguably performs equally with the best defenceman of that era (Lidstrom) in helping the Wings win two Cups.
Remember this when Toronto gives away Turkoglu for 10 cents on the dollar at the 2011 trade deadline.
10 comments:
Fair enough. So do you think it was a good signing then? Did we get fair value out of our $50mil/5yr contract?
Turkoglu get booed not because he doesn't score 20ppg, but his complete lack of energy on the court and poor to very poor body language at times.
Run back on D? Too busy arguing with the ref.
As you pointed out, Turk's stats are nearly the same in every category.... yet there is incessant whining about wanting more touches.
Turk's never been a dynamo on the boards, but Jose Calderon grabs the same number of offensive boards per 36 minutes.
Also, the rate at which Turkoglu gets to the line in comparison to FG's attempted has fallen right off a cliff.
While these all seem like little things, they are are 'hustle' things... and why Turk is getting boos. Turk won't hustle consistently. If Turk was willing to grab the occasional offensive rebound, or dive to the floor to grab a loose ball, or manufacture some steals, or be willing to at least take a charge or something...
If he was 'giving it his all', he wouldn't be averaging career lows in every category where hustle is a requirement. There would at least be one of those areas where he would be making noise in a positive way... but there is not.
The point of the heckling is not so much about his actual numbers. I don't think showing up to work and going hard for however many minutes you are given is an unrealistic expectation. Hedo cries tired more than any other professional athlete I have ever seen. He constantly looks completely disinterested in the game and this is what rubs people the wrong way. The sad thing is, that in the future he will be making over $10 million dollars a year to be a lazy bench player.
While I sometimes don't like Turkoglu's body language on the court and I'm not entirely impressed with his attitude, it's hard to argue with the stats. I think the real issue here is fit.
When he signed, I think fans were just thrilled with the fact that the Raptors could actually land what was widely considered the marquee free agent for that off-season. What everyone overlooked was whether he was what this team really needed. It seems pretty obvious in retrospect that there were bigger issues facing this team, notably defence.
If there's blame to be handed out it belongs to Colangelo for failing to address the needs of the team. By far the biggest issue with this team is defence as regular viewers well know. It's the issue this year and it was the issue last year.
It's nice to get a guy who is supposed to be a clutch offensive player and arguably has a lot of tools but it doesn't fix the major problem. This team, especially the starting five, can't make stops on a consistent basis. We have lots of gifted offensive players on this team but defence is what wins in the NBA.
WRT "Ball v1.24" No need to be snarky Chris!!! I'm sure no one remembers the post where you promised to name every subsequent post "Ball". If it bothers you that much you should give up on the "Ball" dream and go back to regular titles which are so much more easily categorized and referenced. Its your blog man. Just keep the high-brow sports blogging coming!!! Haha
I think Turkoglu does fill a need that raptor fans thought we so badly needed in the past couple years, and that is a wing player who can be a ballhandler and facilitator.
I guess you could argue the raptors haven't been utilizing Hedo properly, or any other number of issues this team has for that matter. I don't feel like doing that though, at least not tonight.
I never thought the Turkoglu signing was a good idea and I was thrilled when he accepted the Portland offer for exactly the reasons you specify, he's not going to get any better and probably much worse.
I don't necessarily have a problem with his performance, but I don't like what it might mean for our cap situation in a year or two.
As long as we don't have to give anything up to get him off our books (Jordan Hill to get Jerome James off NY for example) I'm all right with 10 cents on the dollar, that is the real concern with his contract.
I will say that your stats make me feel a lot better about his performance.
That actually is a good comparison but for none of the reasons you stated. You conviently overlook the fact that Murphy coughed up the puck in his own zone on regular occasion, was a defensive liability, and appeared very indifferent to the leafs struggles, remind you of anybody? I don't think leafs fans were concerned with his offensive skills in just the same way I would be much less concerned with Turk's offensive struggles if he brought something else to the team, like defence.
Both guys came to Toronto with expectations that they would play hard and help the teams in more ways than one, Murphy never did that and Turk is on a similar pace. If we can rid of his contract I would take it and run, I highly doubt he will be the one that got away as you would believe. Bringing up Murphy's +/- numbers in Detroit is also pointles, anyone would have those numbers playing beside Lidstrom in his prime.
Good thing we put Calderon back in the starting lineup. He is the worst defensive PG in the NBA. Between him, Andrea and Hedo, we have 3 Euro's that are awful at defence and signed to big money!
If Hedo appeared to be working hard and giving a crap at all times, he simply wouldn't get the boos.
Instead, he's frequently seen joking around, with teammates as well as opponents, even during blowouts. Whether it's justified or not, he gives the impression that he just doesn't care.
But if you do want to look at it statistically, I don't think the averages tell the whole story. Look at his game log.
Last year: 5 single-digit scoring games (out of 77)
This year: 22 single-digit scoring games (out of 63)
So, despite his averages indicating that he's a comparable player to last year's version, Hedo has been a virtual nonfactor as a scorer in 35% of games with the Raptors. He was only a nonfactor in 6% of games last year.
It's this impression that he takes games off and doesn't always give 100% that pisses off the fans.
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