Leaving aside the wringing of hands over whether Silent G got enough playing time last year or what prompted him to transfer, I'm primarily interested in the effect on the next year's team. This development obviously now makes the emergence of Murphy all the more important to next year's success. As many have noted, the 2011 team had guards and big men, but was lacking on the wing and lacking in versatility in general, particularly on the defensive end. I saw Gbinije and Murphy as the potential solutions to that problem, as both seem to have the size and skill-set to play/guard multiple positions.

With Silent G now gone, that responsibility falls to Murphy alone. Without him, we are looking at basically the same team as last year in terms of make-up -- several guards who can chuck it from long-range (Curry, Rasheed, Dawkins) and a few big men who have great size (Plumlee, Kelly, MP3). Without Rivers, we lose the slashing/attacking element on offense and now without Silent G we lose a potential option on the wing. That's certainly not to say that Gbinije was the panacea to these problems (or that I have any special insight into whether he would be truly good enough to contribute next year), but Silent G at least offered a possibility of improvement in this area. It strikes me that we are now very reliant on Alex to step up his game. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised by Andre next year, but I sort of think he is who he is at this point.