We took the defending champs to game 7 and within 10 minutes of beating them in game 7 last year without Bradley and with the defensive force that is Ray Allen instead. I think Lee can compensate. I never said he was as good a defender as Bradley, but he can at least do a decent job.
Yes, if you care to recall we lost that game and were eliminated. The one series we played without Avery Bradley was the one playoff series we didn't win.
Ray Allen's scoring didn't make up for us losing Bradley's defense.
Bradley had a +15 Net Rating (102.9 Off, 87.9 Def) in the playoffs while Ray Allen had a -1.9 Net Rating (98.6 Off, 100.5 Def).
For the record Courtney Lee currently has a -2.2 Net Rating (99.8 Off, 102.0 Def) which is worse than both Bradley and Ray.
Letsnot forget how hard fought our first and second rounds were against Atlanta and Philly. We won both series, but it took everything we had to scrape through.
Make no mistake about it - if we didn't have Bradley in he playoffs last season we probably never would have made it past the first round. If we had him against Miami there's a very strong possibliity we'd have seen OKC in the Finals.
For the record Demarcus Cousins has a -9.8 overall rating. This is absolutely skewed by him being on a bad team, but if you think that trading Bradley for Cousins (and hoping Lee can pick up the slack) will make us a better team, I would suggest that this is very much not the case.
Right now the only guys on our team who have a positive net rating are Rondo (+0.9), Terry (+3.
, Pierce (+3.6), Sullinger (+0.9) and Garnett (+5.7). Based on last years result (+5.6) you can safely add Bradley to that list.
That's the group of guys I would be most hessitant to trade out in a deal. If I had to let one of them go it would be Sullinger, though if it's at all possible I would prefer to keep him because he's productive and he's a good kid.
Now on that note Barbosa (-11.3), Courtney Lee (-2.2), Green (-3.1), Bass (-2.2), Wilox (-0.9) and Collins (-1.4) all have negative net ratings right now.
Barbosa, Lee and Bass are the first guys I'd want to trade of that group.
Lee and Bass are both redundant once Bradley comes back, and both have $6M/year contracts that they aren't close to justifying.
Barbosa is a capable volume scorer who can play multiple guard positions, and he's playing for practically nothing right now. Given scoring ablity vs his low cost, he's a nice piece that could help to sway a deal.
Green, Wilcox and Collins I'd keep if possible. Green is not living up to his pay but he's the only legit backup SF we have, and he's the only legit scorer outside of Terry that we have coming off our bench. Contrary to popular believe we are NOT better off with Kris Joseph at the backup SF spot.
Wilcox is cheap and has proven he can be productive when playing alongside Rondo so I don't mind him being around.
Collins has dramatically improved since he has been starting, with his net rating going from something like a minus 20, to a minus 1.4 - he's giving us decent effort now. He's also the only legit 7 footer on our active roster and has about zero trade value, so I see no point in trading him out.
P.s.
Yes I know these stats don't tell everything, but they give some indication of a players value regardless.