how much is Courtney lee worth?

[Sorostaran]

Lee's defense on Monta Ellis won the last game. Lowry was good at staying in front of Ellis, but Lowry could not challenge Ellis' jumpers the way Lee did. Ellis was torching the Rockets at something like 14/16 up until that point, but went like 1/4 and 2 TOs in the final stretch when Adelman finally put Lee on Ellis.

Players with Lee's combination of abilities are very useful and extremely rare, no sane GM, let alone Morey, would trade Lee even for a lottery 1st unless the draft is extremely strong. A 20% chance at John Wall is not worth Lee. If nether Brooks nor Lee gets sent off in that consolidation trade, Brooks' minutes will just come out of Buddinger's pocket.

When/if Brooks gets moved, T-Will's minutes will come out of Bud's pocket, too. Either way, Bud is screwed.

[panthermark]

Lee's defense on Monta Ellis won the last game. Lowry was good at staying in front of Ellis, but Lowry could not challenge Ellis' jumpers the way Lee did. Ellis was torching the Rockets at something like 14/16 up until that point, but went like 1/4 and 2 TOs in the final stretch when Adelman finally put Lee on Ellis.

Players with Lee's combination of abilities are very useful and extremely rare, no sane GM, let alone Morey, would trade Lee even for a lottery 1st unless the draft is extremely strong. A 20% chance at John Wall is not worth Lee. If nether Brooks nor Lee gets sent off in that consolidation trade, Brooks' minutes will just come out of Buddinger's pocket.

When/if Brooks gets moved, T-Will's minutes will come out of Bud's pocket, too. Either way, Bud is screwed.

Come on dude.
I think Lee is a pretty solid player...but you are basically saying it would take a high lottery pick to get Lee based on his skillset. I can understand Houston not wanting to move him (similar to the Bulls not wanting to move Taj)...but the reason for not moving him isn't based on his skillset. It is based on his production and age vs salary. Taj is a good defender, great role player, but a marginal starter...he has tremendous value to Chicago based on his (limited) skillset, position and salary.

I think you over-estimate Lee's value to other teams. If a team has a high lottery pick, I can't see that GM giving up that pick for Courtney Lee. A 20% chance at the #1 pick (Wall) is the #2 pick in the draft.

I can understand holding on to him for a consildation deal (with Philly), but I don't think most other teams value Lee as a high lottery pick. Only teams that are weak at SG value him more...but those teams are not going to say...take my top 5 pick for Lee.

It may just be one of those deals where he means more to your team (like Taj in Chicago) than his actual "market value" states.

[TMACFORMVP]

Lee's probably worth more to us than other teams, his flexibility defensively, and his offensive efficiency has helped close out some games this season, sometimes even in the favor of Martin. Though I do wonder how it'll work out between he, Lee, and TWill next season, or later this season, when I presume Williams to start garnering minutes (prob just replace Bud's minutes at best).

Anyway, Taj is similar in the sort of values he brings to a team, but that wouldn't be a trade that interests us IMO. He's another PF, when we clearly need to bring in a big that has some size.

[panthermark]

Lee's probably worth more to us than other teams, his flexibility defensively, and his offensive efficiency has helped close out some games this season, sometimes even in the favor of Martin. Though I do wonder how it'll work out between he, Lee, and TWill next season, or later this season, when I presume Williams to start garnering minutes (prob just replace Bud's minutes at best).

Anyway, Taj is similar in the sort of values he brings to a team, but that wouldn't be a trade that interests us IMO. He's another PF, when we clearly need to bring in a big that has some size.

I 100% agree. And I wasn't proposing a Taj for Lee swap. Chicago would never do that because of how much Taj means to the Bulls. His value to Chicago is worth more than his "market" value would indicate. He turned 25 this summer, but he is only in the 2nd year of late first round contract...so to a team like Chicago that is keeping an eye on the new CBA and Rose's max extension (along with Noah's extension), Taj's low salary is just as important as his play.

I'm sure Houston feels the same way about Lee.
It seems like there are three distinct values to a player.
#1 His value to his own team.
#2 His "market value" (based on his age, skill, salary, contract status, attitude, ect....)
#3 His value to other teams.

Lee's (and Taj's) #1 value is higher then his #2 and #3...which makes any trade difficult.

[Sorostaran]

Come on dude.
I think Lee is a pretty solid player...but you are basically saying it would take a high lottery pick to get Lee based on his skillset. I can understand Houston not wanting to move him (similar to the Bulls not wanting to move Taj)...but the reason for not moving him isn't based on his skillset. It is based on his production and age vs salary. Taj is a good defender, great role player, but a marginal starter...he has tremendous value to Chicago based on his (limited) skillset, position and salary.

I think you over-estimate Lee's value to other teams. If a team has a high lottery pick, I can't see that GM giving up that pick for Courtney Lee. A 20% chance at the #1 pick (Wall) is the #2 pick in the draft.

I can understand holding on to him for a consildation deal (with Philly), but I don't think most other teams value Lee as a high lottery pick. Only teams that are weak at SG value him more...but those teams are not going to say...take my top 5 pick for Lee.

It may just be one of those deals where he means more to your team (like Taj in Chicago) than his actual "market value" states.

No, I am not over-estimating Lee's value to other teams. It was just that that I was talking about basketball value and you were talking about market value.

The market value of a lottery picks is generally a lot higher than its basketball value because most GMs over(basketball)value lottery picks. Morey doesn't make that mistake, so for the purpose of trading for Courtney Lee (which is, presumably, the point of this thread), his basketball value is more relevant than his market value. Now, Lee's market value is not completely irrelevant, because if you can find a team willing to trade a player with higher basketball value than Lee's for your lottery pick's trade value, then Morey will be happy to send you Lee for that player with you sending your lottery pick to that third, sucker team. This is unlikely, however, because Morey has his own set of high-trade-value-low-basketball-value assets to work with to swindle more basketball value out of this hypothetical third sucker team.

The chances to land even an above average rotation player for a top 10 pick is crap. Heck, even a top 5 pick's average basketball value is not that great unless you have a strong draft class. If Orlando had traded Lee for a lottery pick after Lee proved his worth his first season, far more likely than not they would not have gotten his basketball value back in return. They would have had a small chance to land Blake Griffin or maybe Stephen Curry (one-way player), but more likely than not they would have been forced to settle for crap like Evans or a decent rotation guy like James Harden or Jonny Flynn. If it's a top 10 pick, they would have ended up with the likes of DeMar DeRozan.

The closest thing to Chicago's Bobcat pick I can think of in recent memory is the NY pick Utah held on patiently forever to while the Knicks cooperatively sucked forever. Utah finally cashed in on their "high lottery" 8th pick this year (which they were lucky to get to start with with the Knicks cooperatively sucking forever). It gave them a crapshot in the dark for Wall, and they ended up having the pick between Gordon Hayward and Xavier Henry. Had the Knicks been really cooperative, Utah's crapshot in the dark for Wall (and maybe Favors) would have been slightly less crappy, and they may have ended up with Evan Turner or Wesley Johnson (both decent, but I rather have Lee than either). The best the Bobcats pick can be is #9 if the Bobcats somehow manages to suck all the way until 2015. If they sucked until 2016, it is unlikely that they will suck enough for it to be much higher than #9 anyway (their owner is not the rebuilding type).

People don't consider state lottery the state tax on stupidity for no good reason.

[inquisitive]

I'm glad we got Lee and traded Ariza.