1.Stoudemire (great frontcourt: James+Stoudemire+Varejão - top contender for many years)
2.Jamison
3.West (small, unimportant improvement)
4.Murphy (would Murphy actually improve them? Another slow big who doesn't defend and can't create his shot?)
Murphy improves them. Slow, not great defensively but at least high effort (hey, it works for Ray Allen). Him not creating his own shot is a non-issue. He is able to score without needing touches. With his excellent 3 pt shooting and remarkable rebounding ability (led PFs in defensive rebounding a year ago) - he makes that offense work in a way that Big Z can't anymore. He's no worse defensively than Z.
Jamison would help a lot - but also poor defensively. Really it's close. Amare would help - but he is a poor EFFORT defender and whines when he does not get touches. Cavs will have to evaluate him fully. David West is not a huge improvement - since most of his shots are elbow jumpers - and you need to hit them at Dirk's rate to be a star.
I disagree about Murphy.
Offensively - I think his inability to create shots (illustrated by a funny statistical oddity: every single one of his 358 3pt shots from last season was assisted) is an issue because lacking of reliable shot-creators has been one of the biggest problems for the Cavaliers in the past few years - ultimately that forces them to resort to a self-absorbed LeBron dominating the ball and everyone else playing off him, standing and watch. And Murphy is the prototypical stand and watch player - unlike, say, a guy like Bargnani who may look a similar player but can actually create assists for his teammates by moving off the ball. A huge percentage of Murphy looks are off the pick'n'pop and the transition 3, as a result of him being the trailer. So, Murphy is a player that often disappears of games in 4th quarters because defences tighten up. His lack of a single post move also means that teams can defend him with a much smaller player. I'm not sure how much the Cavs offence improves with another spectator catch'n'shooter.
I never thought Murphy is a good passer - he may not be a bad passer, but why exactly is he a good one? I guess he's been putting decent assist numbers, but that's merely a product of O'Brien's tendency to have bigs holding the ball in the pinch post, passing the ball to baseline/sidescreens cutters. Check his numbers pre/post O'Brien and compare them to Jeff Foster's numbers also pre/post O'Brien, for example. A great passing big man is a guy like Kevin Garnett, a good one is someone like Andrew Bogut. Murphy is average/passable at best. His inability to make the entry pass and be a post feeder has always irked me.
Defender - I think Murphy's defensive effort is sporadic and erratic. In any case, effort brings his defence up from terrifying to really bad. I completely disagree he's a better defender than Ilgauskas. At least the Lithuanian is still a decent post defender and a good rim protector. Murphy is just plain bad all across the spectrum. More importantly, he's the exact opposite of the kind of player that would improve Cleveland's defence: an athletic, quick big who could cover perimeter oriented bigs and defend the pick'n'roll. He's just as slow as Shaq/Z with the downside of not being as good defending the low post and blocking shots. We've seen how pathetic is the Pacers interior defence when Murphy and Hibbert are playing together. No reason to believe it'd be different in Cleveland. Plus, his tendency to lumber up and down the floor when changing ends makes him a liability defending the transition. He's a sieve. One of the worst defenders among starting big men in the league.
Rebounder - Even if you see Murphy as a top rebounder, how much does that help the Cavs? They're already the best/2nd best defensive rebounding team in the league, I doubt there's margin to improve there, especially considering Murphy would take minutes from other good rebounders. The law of diminishing returns applies to rebounding.
Plus, although this may be seen as odd, I think Murphy is grossly overrated as a rebounder - he's good, but not as good as his numbers seem to indicate. He's a very selfish rebounder and not only in the classic sense of positioning himself to rebound at the cost of defending, a la Camby/Forston. Very often I've noticed that Murphy literally takes away rebounds of his teammates hands. So often than I've actually noticed it. Mind you: I understand that good rebounders are necessarily selfish and end up taking rebounds from his teammates hands. It's just part of the mentality. But with Murphy is different - it happens a lot and he goes out of his way to put his hands on completely safe balls.
Notice how the Pacers rebounding numbers hardly suffer when Murphy is off the floor - in fact, this season the Pacers are a better rebounding team without Murphy! And this is a team whose 2nd best rebounder is a guy like Hibbert, Hansbrough or Solomon Jones - all of them average/bellow par rebounders and this being generous. Even last season when Murphy lead the league in Def. RR, the Pacers defensive RR with him on the floor was only 0.1% better. That's amazing. It shows that Murphy just collects a lot of rebounds that his teammates would get anyway - even though his teammates aren't good rebounders.
So, no, I don't think that Murphy adds a lot to the Cavs - I believe the effort of working him into the rotation may very well upset what he brings to the table. Trying to be as sympathetic as possible, it's a very lateral move.
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Topic: Who do you least want Cleveland to trade for? (Read 12721 times)