Forgot About Trey

Trey Murphy's usage is a complete failure from everyone involved - players, coaches, and management alike.

Following a 146-110 win against the dismal San Antonio Spurs, Willie Green acknowledged the franchise record setting performance from deep as a product of teamwide buy in. “We’re showing them the pictures,” revealed Green to reporters in the post game. The pictures being film room sessions of what the Pelicans look like when they are playing the “right way” juxtaposed with what they look like when they are not. The Pelicans followed up the 22-42 performance the next game with just 25 threes attempted. To make matters worse, the team only secured one three point attempt for their best shooter - Trey Murphy. The lone attempt came in the waning moments of the third, with just under 15 minutes remaining in the contest. The team should never go 33 minutes of game time without getting their best shooter a look from deep. This instance did not occur in a vacuum and represents what has been a complete failure from the organization to optimize their most efficient basketball player. This failure lies at the feet of the coaching staff, fellow teammates, and management.

The coaching staff’s reluctance to play Trey Murphy is a bad habit that has been present since the young forward was drafted. Murphy spent much of his rookie year losing minutes to a 35 year old Garrett Temple. Temple lodged 1098 minutes on the season, while Murphy notched 864. The problem manifested itself throughout the season with many vets, including Tony Snell’s notorious appearance in a win or go home play-in game - a game were Murphy was a team high +26 as well as the team’s leading scorer in the 4th quarter. A short time later, Murphy would watch Jaxson Hayes secure a starting spot every single game in the playoffs where the data and eye test could not have been more clear about a change needing to occur.

This type of inexplicable decision making from the coaching staff carried over to Murphy’s second year, were he would find himself glued to the bench in favor of Devonte’ Graham. The issue most notably presented itself when the staff unfathomably chose to exit all-star break with Josh Richardson in the starting lineup in lieu of Murphy. The Pelicans would proceed to lose three straight games before the staff relented and Murphy was inserted back into the starting five. The Pelicans would then close the regular season 13-6 with Murphy averaging 20.4 points per game on an absurd 69.8% TS. The efficiency and wins were nice, but Murphy averaged 36.9 minutes per game over that stretch, leading us to believe the staff had learned from their mistakes once and for all.

We are now in year three, and the inconsistency with Murphy’s playtime and usage are as present as ever. There is an outstanding lack of intention on display. Normally when a team has player that is as ultra efficient as Murphy and can clearly handle a greater possession usage, the team deploys all their resources in figuring out how far the efficiency stretches. All players have a usage to efficiency curve, and at some point, high usage leads large drop offs in efficiency. There is, however, a sweet spot - a spot that the Pelicans have made zero efforts to discover with Trey Murphy.

When Murphy closed the past year out averaging over 20ppg in his last 19, his usage rate was only 18.3%. With a TS% of nearly 70, there is likely a vast continent to be crossed before we discover where the continental shelf of efficiency is for Murphy.

Murphy has picked up right where he left off last season, averaging a 65.1% TS on a 19.8% usage in the 8 games he has played. In key moments of close games against Charlotte and Memphis where the Pelicans routinely struggled to score, Murphy found himself glued to the bench.

It gets worse. Much worse. When a player is as good as Murphy from deep, it would make natural sense that the coaching staff would go out of their way to pair such a threat with the paint dominating presence of Zion Williamson. The Pelicans have made absolutely zero efforts to maximize the pairing’s time together. In 202 minutes that Murphy has played, he has shared only 68 of them with Williamson, a roughly 34% overlap. The only two players that have shared fewer minutes with Murphy are Jordan Hawkins and Cody Zeller. Among rotation players, Zion is dead last.

The complete lack of effort from the staff’s part here is baffling. I’m not sure you can design a rotation that contained less overlap with Zion if you actively tried. This is a truly unique accomplishment. Okay, I might be exaggerating for effect, since Zion has missed one game, but the point remains - the team has failed to optimize their minutes. If this wasn’t damning enough, Zion has assisted on 4 of Murphy’s 19 makes from three. Three of those four makes came in the first game alone. It’s not a matter of just missing shots either. Zion has registered only 9 potential assists to Trey for three, and 4 of those were in that first game. After the game, Murphy told media that defenses would have to “pick their poison” with he and Zion, and no matter their choice, the opponent would lose either way.

The staff has no interest in forcing defenses to pick this poison. They seem content to allow Trey Murphy to be a situational specialist as the team artificially inflates their net rating stats by beating up on terrible teams. They are content throwing Murphy out there as lone shooter to try and carry defense heavy units that have no ability or desire to create good looks - a departure from the early season philosophy that saw multiple shooter heavy units leading to success.

There are very few play designs for Trey. Accompanying this futility, there is zero proactive movement towards figuring out what exactly Trey Murphy can be, or how good the offense can flow when Zion is surrounded by shooters. Sometimes things are simple and not worth overthinking. The Pelicans are 22-7 over Murphy’s career when he attempts 8 or more threes. They are 41-60 when he attempts 7 or less, in games he has played at least 10 minutes. There is likely a fair amount of survivorship bias at play, but it is on the whole organization to figure out if there is actual truth to the data. There needs to be a prolonged effort to rectify this failure.

This indifferent attitude is trickling down to the players. There seems to be a lack of understanding from the Pelicans players that Trey Murphy does not merely exist to space the floor from them. Almost universally, usage rates for Trey’s teammates increases when he’s on the floor vs when he is off. Amongst rotation players (sorry Hawk and Cody), only Zion and Marshall actually have lower usage rates when sharing time with Murphy, with Marshall’s non Murphy usage buoyed by garbage time.

This is a philosophical issue that is reflection of the coaching staff. If the staff does not emphasize the need to involve Murphy, the players will follow suit. Trey’s two most common bench partners in Naji Marshall and Jose Alvarado are passing the ball to him at lower rates than the previous year. Marshall has dropped from 8.6 passes per 100 possessions to 7.6, while Alvarado’s passing rate has seen an enormous drop from 11.6 per 100 to a paltry 5.4.

To be fair, both these players have been playing and shooting well for the most part, so I want to allow for a bit of grace. This is not at critical failure levels yet, and is something that can easily be correctable. Yet Murphy’s usage should approach almost double these players on average. It is merely indicative of a teamwide process failure. This process is entirely fixable! Run plays for Trey! Run them in actions with Zion! Do it over and over until defenses are sick of defending them and then do it some more!

Now you might be wondering, where is the Pelicans front office in all this? Where is their analytics group? Believe me, they are all keenly aware of these numbers as well. Trey, by all accounts, is viewed as one of the “pillars” of the organization. The front office has watched with dread as similar young wings have pulled contracts worth over $100 million. They know this summer, with Murphy becoming extension eligible, is going to be costly one. There is no point in risking entering restricted free agency, for teams such as Detroit will be ready to throw a max offer sheet at Murphy with all the bells and whistles. Yet the front office has maintained a relatively hands off approach with the coaching staff.

What I’m about to discuss is purely speculative, so I want to make clear I’m not reporting anything here. I can’t help but wonder if early accusations of meddling has led the Pelicans brass to take a more conservative approach with Willie Green and his staff. I know the staff gets reports every game and overall data summaries and presentations. Yet after three years of repetitive behavior with regards to Trey, I can’t help but assume the front office has not been as insistent as they should be. Again, I want to make it clear that I have little tangible insight in this dynamic, but a good front office and coaching relationship should be able to sort out these issues much more quickly than they have.

The Pelicans are staring down the barrel of a potential 5 year, $150 million contract for Trey. His fit with their two stars, and ANY star for that matter is seamless. There needs to be a concerted effort on all fronts to incorporate Trey as a focal piece rather than as an accessory. David Griffin is a strong proponent of telling people what they need to hear, rather than what they want to hear. I hope the front office is able to deliver a message the whole organization hears loudly and clearly.