Alex Murphy to Florida

[Lauderdevil]

Unfortunately, there's only one basketball and 200 minutes to go around. Alex Murphy would get his fair share of those minutes at most schools, and I can hardly begrudge him wanting that. I hope he becomes a star wherever he goes. He's been class as far as I've ever seen.

[tommy]

This doesn't really make sense and might end up hurting Duke moving forward (my main concern). If Parker and Hood go pro after this year, there should be plenty of playing time at the forward position. His main competition would be Jones/Sheed/incoming Justise. Those three other guys are SGs and will spend some time at the 2.

The only way this could be harmless for Duke is if Rasheed and Matt are thoroughly outplaying him and Justise is definitively better coming in (always hard to know for sure). I hope that's the case, but it seems like we could use his height at the 3 to counteract our likely small lineup of Tyus and Quinn starting.

Don't forget Semi, who at 6'6" is best suited to play the 3.

[mattman91]

This doesn't really make sense and might end up hurting Duke moving forward (my main concern). If Parker and Hood go pro after this year, there should be plenty of playing time at the forward position. His main competition would be Jones/Sheed/incoming Justise. Those three other guys are SGs and will spend some time at the 2.

The only way this could be harmless for Duke is if Rasheed and Matt are thoroughly outplaying him and Justise is definitively better coming in (always hard to know for sure). I hope that's the case, but it seems like we could use his height at the 3 to counteract our likely small lineup of Tyus and Quinn starting.

Forgetting someone? Ojeleye?!

[flyingdutchdevil]

Definitely unfortunate if true. But if playing time was what he was looking for, then a transfer probably makes the most sense. With Jefferson establishing himself as the likely PF next year, with Ojeleye competing for the same role, and with Winslow a top-10 recruit on the way, it doesn't look like playing time will be readily available until his senior year.

For all those who chastise folks for discussing the possibility of a player transferring, this is just the nature of the beast. At Duke, if you aren't a top-25 recruit, there's a real chance you won't find playing time. It does sometimes happen (see Thornton, Melchionni). But when the recruiting picks up steam (as it has done over the past couple of years), there are going to be some guys left in the wake.

I'd love it if upper-tier guys were okay with coming to Duke and staying 4 years in a reserve capacity. But that life is not for everyone. I certainly can't begrudge Murphy for wanting to get to play.

Really sad to see Robocop go, if the reports are true. He looked like he was on the verge of getting it and could have contributed significantly in his last two years.

Also, everything you said above is true, especially the bolded part. In today's game, transfers are a dime a dozen. Still sucks to see it happen, but it happens so often these days.

[CDu]

This doesn't really make sense and might end up hurting Duke moving forward (my main concern). If Parker and Hood go pro after this year, there should be plenty of playing time at the forward position. His main competition would be Jones/Sheed/incoming Justise. Those three other guys are SGs and will spend some time at the 2.

Murphy has, presumably, two positions at the college level: SF and PF. Our PF options next year are Jefferson (likely starter), Murphy, and Ojeleye. Our SF options are Jones, Sulaimon, Winslow, Ojeleye, and Murphy. Even if Jones and Sulaimon played zero minutes at SF (which won't happen), that still leaves a pretty crowded picture at SF and PF. He isn't likely to start over Winslow or Jefferson, and if Ojeleye has beaten him out for PT then he isn't likely to see the floor next year. I certainly wouldn't say that there is "plenty" of time at the SF and PF spots next year, because the minutes that Hood and Parker had are most likely to be gobbled up by Jefferson and Winslow.

The only way this could be harmless for Duke is if Rasheed and Matt are thoroughly outplaying him and Justise is definitively better coming in (always hard to know for sure). I hope that's the case, but it seems like we could use his height at the 3 to counteract our likely small lineup of Tyus and Quinn starting.

Winslow is a more highly-touted recruit than Murphy was, for whatever that's worth. And it can be "harmless" for Duke if any two of Winslow, Jones, Ojeleye, or Sulaimon is a better option at the SF spot and if Jefferson and Ojeleye are better options at the PF spot.

I'm not concerned about a small lineup of Cook and Jones at guard. Teams don't exploit small guards. They exploit small bigs or slow guards. If you have 2-3 reasonably-sized frontcourt guys, you don't have to worry about small guards.

[Kedsy]

This doesn't really make sense and might end up hurting Duke moving forward (my main concern). If Parker and Hood go pro after this year, there should be plenty of playing time at the forward position. His main competition would be Jones/Sheed/incoming Justise. Those three other guys are SGs and will spend some time at the 2.

The only way this could be harmless for Duke is if Rasheed and Matt are thoroughly outplaying him and Justise is definitively better coming in (always hard to know for sure). I hope that's the case, but it seems like we could use his height at the 3 to counteract our likely small lineup of Tyus and Quinn starting.

I disagree. While it's true we don't know for sure that Justise would be ahead of Alex in the rotation, the likelihood is he would be. There probably wouldn't be many wing minutes available for Alex next year with Quinn, Tyus, Rasheed, Matt, and Justise ahead of him. He'd be competing with Grayson and Semi for wing table scraps. It's possible he could have gotten some minutes at PF, but again he'd be competing with Amile, Marshall, and Semi for two rotation spots alongside Jahlil.

I'm always sad when someone leaves the program -- and I'm sad now for Alex -- but from a basketball standpoint the biggest implication is we'll only have 10 recruited scholarship players.

[Dukehky]

It seems like we lose a lot of kids to transfers. Silent G, Elliott, Olek, Boateng, now Murph. In all likelihood, outside of Elliot, our transfers wouldn't have been likely to help the team much. However, all of those players ended up being solid contributors to other teams. I can't help but wonder if they wouldn't be contributors for Duke if K lengthened his bench a little bit. I've always been a bit skeptical of K's rotations exclusing the 2010 season bc we didn't have anyone else to play that year, and we end up losing players because of it. K knows what he's doing though, I just hate to lose kids that dedicated themselves to Duke basketball and it doesn't pay off.

I always liked Murph and had high hopes for the whole Singler 2.0 comparison. I hope he goes on to have a great college career and makes it to the league, he's got more natural talent than Erik, just not quite the skill set yet.

This is probably a reach, but maybe Jabari said he was coming back, making the potential playing time shrink dramatically. Gotta look for the silver lining I guess...

[duke09hms]

Forgetting someone? Ojeleye?!

Haha oops my bad. Semi is a beast. Not to bash, but if this is true, I hope Alex is getting dominated in practice by Semi, Sheed, Jones, and got owned by Justise on his visit.

[Kedsy]

It seems like we lose a lot of kids to transfers.

I don't have the article at my fingertips, but there was an article posted, I think earlier in this calendar year but it might have been last year, that showed that in recent years Duke has the lowest transfer rate in the ACC. It seems like we lose a lot of transfers, but apparently other programs have been losing more.

This is probably a reach, but maybe Jabari said he was coming back, making the potential playing time shrink dramatically. Gotta look for the silver lining I guess...

Yes, that is a reach.

[mr. synellinden]

What do you find interesting about this?

Well, I find a few things interesting. First, that (probably with good reason) people were thinking so highly of Murphy that the idea of him moving up a year (from class of 2012 to 2011) would be considered a good thing so he could get out of the way for Jabari Parker (meaning he would play in college only two years). Murphy was rated in the top 15 in the 2012 class (about the same as Winslow) and then when he reclassified to 2011, he was rated #41 by ESPN. As a side note, I think it's interesting that he was ranked 1 spot ahead of Otto Porter and 8 spots ahead of Ben McLemore. It really shows what a crapshoot recruiting is and why it is a mistake to have expectations based on rankings. We now know that there was no way Murphy (or anyone else really) would be an impediment to Parker coming to Duke and starting from day 1.


I also find it interesting that Parker was that much on the radar screen two and a half years ago. It would be like saying now, one good thing about Justise Winslow being a likely two year player is that he'll be gone by the time Harry Giles would get here.

[freedevil]

Bummer. Best of luck to him.

[johnb]

It seems like we lose a lot of kids to transfers. Silent G, Elliott, Olek, Boateng, now Murph....

I doubt we have more transfers than other programs; actually, I think it's relatively few.

I had wondered if Alex would stick around; from a basketball perspective, it makes sense. He is an excellent player who watched as we recruited a string of freakishly good players at both of his positions. No way he's beating out Parker/Hood, and it's unlikely he's beating out Winslow/Ojeleye/Jones/Sulaimon and whatever other top ten recruits we get in 2015.

By all accounts, he's a good guy who's probably making a reasonable decision. I'll wish him well--maybe he can come back on his new team and really show his stuff.

[socaldukie]

Laura Keeley confirmed via twitter that he is transferring at the end of the semester. Best of luck Murph!

[flyingdutchdevil]

Yes, that is a reach.

I don't think it's a reach at all. Yes - all indications point to Jabari leaving, but crazier things have happened: Smart turning down a top 3 pick to return, McBob turning down a top 5 pick to return, Portland having the best record in the West...

[Troublemaker]

This doesn't really make sense

It makes a lot of sense from his perspective. I would not consider Murphy a favorite for playing time over any of Cook, MJones, Sulaimon, TJones, and Winslow for a perimeter spot, and I would not consider him a favorite for playing time over any of Okafor, Jefferson, Plumlee, and Ojeleye for an interior spot. In most of those cases, he'd be a huge underdog, of course.

Now maybe he could've carved out a 10 min/gm role for himself next year at Duke, but I'm not sure the Murphys are really interested even in that kind of a role for Alex at this point in his career. They and he probably want him to start for the final 1.5 seasons of his career (although I do hope he can get some sort of waiver to bump that to 2.5 seasons). From that standpoint, I would be a little bit surprised if Florida ends up being the destination as well.

In any case, best of luck to Alex wherever he ends up. I hope he gets to start, play confidently and play well.

[flyingdutchdevil]

We obviously can't talk about transfers, but a lot of us think about them.

Is anyone really surprised that Murphy transferred, given how he seemed to be in a similar spot as many of our other transfers: Olek, Boykins, Thompson

[Goduke2010]

It seems like we lose a lot of kids to transfers. Silent G, Elliott, Olek, Boateng, now Murph. In all likelihood, outside of Elliot, our transfers wouldn't have been likely to help the team much. However, all of those players ended up being solid contributors to other teams. I can't help but wonder if they wouldn't be contributors for Duke if K lengthened his bench a little bit. I've always been a bit skeptical of K's rotations exclusing the 2010 season bc we didn't have anyone else to play that year, and we end up losing players because of it. K knows what he's doing though, I just hate to lose kids that dedicated themselves to Duke basketball and it doesn't pay off.

Guys ranked outside the top 20 or so (Murphy was #36, Plumlee #62) are going to find their playing time taken by higher ranked recruits like Winslow. Not too long ago I saw an article about NBA draft position based on the player's final high school rank. There was a dropoff after high school rank of 3, another drop at rank 10, and a final drop around rank 20.

I think you're right about Coach K's "short-bench" syndrome. Guys like Murphy never get playing time, which makes it damn hard to stay motivated, much less improve.

[Troublemaker]

I'm always sad when someone leaves the program -- and I'm sad now for Alex -- but from a basketball standpoint the biggest implication is we'll only have 10 recruited scholarship players.

Agreed totally. Very possible we'll look for a 5th year senior wing for practice purposes. It's always nice to be able to field two teams in practice with 5 scholarship players each. So, for example, if Grayson Allen sprains an ankle, the 5th year senior can fill in.

[Des Esseintes]

This doesn't really make sense and might end up hurting Duke moving forward (my main concern). If Parker and Hood go pro after this year, there should be plenty of playing time at the forward position. His main competition would be Jones/Sheed/incoming Justise. Those three other guys are SGs and will spend some time at the 2.

The only way this could be harmless for Duke is if Rasheed and Matt are thoroughly outplaying him and Justise is definitively better coming in (always hard to know for sure). I hope that's the case, but it seems like we could use his height at the 3 to counteract our likely small lineup of Tyus and Quinn starting.

I wish Alex the very best, and I'm sorry to see him leave Duke. He made real sacrifices to attend here. At the same time, as CDu notes, transfers happen. They happen at Duke for reasons that are usually on balance positive for the program, which is to say the player in question is not getting playing time and likely won't get much more going forward because better talent is on hand and in the pipeline. That's almost certainly the case with Murphy.

As far as Duke being hurt, there was a tremendous amount of handwringing about Michael Gbinije's transfer after the 2012 season. Silent G is now at Syracuse, and while being a useful contributor is hardly annihilating the competition. If still at Duke, there's little chance he would be playing more than his current 15 min/game, and the better chance is that he would be playing less. So Duke has not missed him, has used that scholarship for other players, and G himself is in a better situation. While transfers are unfortunate in some ways, they can be a great thing for a player without damaging his old school much at all.

[Des Esseintes]

I think you're right about Coach K's "short-bench" syndrome. Guys like Murphy never get playing time, which makes it damn hard to stay motivated, much less improve.

Except that very few of these guys develop into major contributors at their later destinations. Or if they do, it's because like Czyz they drop down from high-major-level to Nevada. (Elliott Williams made the NBA, but he did not leave Duke for lack of playing time.) How is K's short bench hurting them at their new schools, pray tell?