Just thought I'd post an interesting piece about our newest acquisition. Was written a couple years ago.
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/courtvision-david-lees-interior-defense-a-k-a-the-golden-gate/
In the next possession, after an offensive rebound, Williams — who is still Lee’s assignment — gathers the ball at the free throw line. Lee is standing at the crown of the restricted area. After a power dribble in the paint, Williams elevates toward the basket, and in the same way a nice young man would hold the door for an elderly woman, Lee for some reason turns his body perpendicular to the backboard, clearing out of Williams’s path. Williams somehow misses the easy layup but quickly cleans up his mess with an easy putback. The good news is that the opponent shot only 50 percent in the restricted area during this possession, lower than Lee’s 61 percent average.
Another take:
http://wagesofwins.com/2013/03/12/david-lee-and-the-value-of-defense/
One other thing we have to be careful not to overreact to is how much Lee’s defense matters. I am very excited about the Spor**** data and have bugged several people about it. Knowing Lee’s defense is bad does not tell us how much that impacts his overall performance. My personal take? Based on the last several seasons, this definitely places Lee at average to below average in terms of total contribution. But, until we start quantifying exactly how much his defense is costing his team, we need to be careful about declaring Lee a bad player.
Another:
http://www.sbnation.com/2012/11/30/3710146/david-lee-golden-state-warriors-hook
By scouting report, Lee is a defensive disaster. His only marketable defensive skill is rebounding, where he's quite strong. But he has such a poor defensive reputation that when he once received an All-Defense vote the internet nearly imploded in disbelief. On-off data seems to back up the common perception. Last season, the Warriors' defense was five points per 100 possessions better with Lee on the bench. With Lee on the court, opponents had an effective field goal percentage of .505. With Lee on the bench, it was .478.
The numbers were virtually identical in 2010-11: the Warriors' defense was five points better with Lee sitting, primarily because of shooting. Using on-off data, Lee's offensive contribution has been nearly the exact converse of his defensive impact: the team has typically been 4-5 points better offensively with Lee on the court.
This is where things are exceptionally tricky. Using this type of data, it appears Lee is as good offensively as he is bad defensively. He has no net impact in total. There's a value in that, of course, because there are plenty of players who have net negative impacts. But for a player making the level of coin Lee is due, that's underwhelming
Hmm… I don't necessarily buy the premise being pushed here.
Being the nerd that I am, I took some time to read those articles (I'd actually read the WOW article way back when it was published). They all are based on seasons prior to the last two. I know that they make some attempt to take out team effects, but I don't think they succeed.
Sharing the bulk of your minutes with Ellis, Wright and Beidrins/Udoh (The guys Lee and Curry spent most of their minutes with in 2011-12) is very different from sharing the bulk of your minutes with Thompson, Barnes and Ezeli/Bogut (their main lineup 'mates in 2012-13) or Thompson, Iggy & Bogut in 2013-14.
In 2011-12, yep, when Lee sat down, the defense was indeed better. But he wasn't the only one sitting down when it got better. One of the big reasons it got better was because the defensive rebounding of that starting lineup was atrocious (under 67% DRB%, I believe, which is bawd-awful). The bench was literally taller and better at rebounding and defense, rebounding at around an at least nominally acceptable 70% DRB%.
As of 2012-13, though, things start to turn. In particular, you see that the team defensive rebounding was a much better 72% and in particular was actually slightly better with the starters (and Lee) on the floor.
In 2013-14, Lee's most recent full, healthy season (2505 minutes, including playoffs), the Warriors were most definitely NOT better on defense (or offense) when Lee sat down.
w/Lee:
OffRtg 111.1 points per 100 possessions
DefRtg 102.1
Net: +9.0
w/o Lee:
OffRtg 103.6
DefRtg 106.1
Net: -2.5
That's an overall on/off net or +11.5 points per 100 possessions. Also notably, the Defensive Rebounding numbers for this team jumped up to about 75%, slightly better with Lee on the floor than without.
Now, spending the bulk of your minutes with Thompson, Barnes, Iggy and Bogut instead of the above mentioned guys from 2011-12 probably helped.
But it's not like Lee was dragging a good starting lineup down. Of GSW's 5-man units that got at least 75 minutes that season, he was not on their worst defensive lineup, but he was on their two best. The worst DRtg of any of these 5-mans that he was on was 105.2. That's hardly a defensive embarrassment. He was on 4 of their 5 best defensive lineups, posting ratings of 85.5, 92.2, 98.3 & 98.7 -- all excellent numbers. The latter rating was the lineup he posted the most minutes (818) with the starters.
If you want to give credit for the latter great numbers only to his teammates, that's fine. But it demonstrates that Lee is at least capable of playing within units that can post fantastic defensive numbers.
I personally won't look for Lee to provide any sort of big defensive boost to the Celtics. But it doesn't seem likely that he'll be a big defensive liability either.
Whether the team is good on defense will probably depend on many more factors.
I also doubt we are going to be depending on him for 2505 minutes this season either.
Topic: The Golden Gate Moves to Boston (Read 11745 times)