RealGM

Apologize if this has been discussed at length elsewhere, but this is not a 'who would you rather have thread', its more just a chance for me to figure out a little more about David Lee.

What can we expect out of Lee compared to Love?
How will our team look different with Lee on the floor vs. Love?
Strengths/Weaknesses?

Again, all contracts, and Jefferson's aside...what does Lee bring or not bring to the wolves?

slinky wrote:Apologize if this has been discussed at length elsewhere, but this is not a 'who would you rather have thread', its more just a chance for me to figure out a little more about David Lee.

What can we expect out of Lee compared to Love?
How will our team look different with Lee on the floor vs. Love?
Strengths/Weaknesses?

Again, all contracts, and Jefferson's aside...what does Lee bring or not bring to the wolves?

My general opinion in a nutshell
Both = good team ball players, good BBIQ's, but average at best defenders
Lee = better athlete and transition player
Love = better shooter and half-court player

I haven't really seen Lee play, so what makes Love the better shooter and half-court player?

Lee can handle lots of minutes. Lee is very bad on D, but the better athlete, so i'd expect more defensive improvement. I don't know that Love's jumper is that much better than Lee's, as Lee greatly improved his jumper the last year or 2. Lee is certainly quicker. They both are tremendous rebounders obviously, but they both do it at the expense of position and boxing out. I would not want more than $8-9 mil into either one of them.

Darko Miliminutes wrote: Lee is very bad on D, but the better athlete, so i'd expect more defensive improvement.

How often do you see a 27 year old player improve anything, and how often do you see a 21 year old player improve everything?

I think he meant team improvement, not that David Lee would get better at defense.

Diggler wrote:

Darko Miliminutes wrote: Lee is very bad on D, but the better athlete, so i'd expect more defensive improvement.

How often do you see a 27 year old player improve anything, and how often do you see a 21 year old player improve everything?

Yeah def. team D improvement, since 'antoni doesn't care about defense yet, or care to. But also personal improvement can happen even at 27. A change of scenery and coaching, and wanting the new mates see you give it your all...

But improvement would likely come from a team D perspective. But i wouldn't expect much. I don't care for Lee much. I watched him alot last year, and he was certainly playing for a contract...lots of selfish play. But i don't care for Love much either, and i think Lee is the better player. Just not worth what it's going to cost. But Lee does have a helluva motor

Here are their stats last year;
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... i?id=DeIYl

Per Game
Plyr G GS MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Lee 81 81 37.3 8.5 15.5 .545 0.0 0.1 .000 3.3 4.1 .812 2.8 8.9 11.7 3.6 1.0 0.5 2.3 3.2 20.2
Love 60 22 28.6 4.9 10.8 .450 0.6 1.8 .330 3.8 4.6 .815 3.8 7.2 11.0 2.3 0.7 0.4 2.0 2.3 14.0

Per 36 Minutes
Plyr G GS MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Lee 81 81 3019 8.2 15.0 .545 0.0 0.1 .000 3.2 3.9 .812 2.7 8.6 11.3 3.5 1.0 0.5 2.3 3.1 19.6
Love 60 22 1714 6.1 13.6 .450 0.7 2.2 .330 4.7 5.8 .815 4.8 9.1 13.8 2.9 0.9 0.5 2.5 2.9 17.7

Advanced
Plyr G MP PER TS% eFG% ORB% DRB% TRB% AST% STL% BLK% TOV% USG% ORtg DRtg OWS DWS WS WS/48
Lee 81 3019 22.2 .584 .545 8.4 27.6 17.9 17.5 1.4 1.0 11.9 23.8 116 108 7.4 2.9 10.3 0.163
Love 60 1714 20.7 .549 .478 14.5 28.6 21.5 12.9 1.3 1.0 13.2 22.4 113 109 3.4 1.5 4.9 0.138

Saltine wrote:Here are their stats last year;
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... i?id=DeIYl

Per Game
Plyr G GS MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Lee 81 81 37.3 8.5 15.5 .545 0.0 0.1 .000 3.3 4.1 .812 2.8 8.9 11.7 3.6 1.0 0.5 2.3 3.2 20.2
Love 60 22 28.6 4.9 10.8 .450 0.6 1.8 .330 3.8 4.6 .815 3.8 7.2 11.0 2.3 0.7 0.4 2.0 2.3 14.0

Per 36 Minutes
Plyr G GS MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS
Lee 81 81 3019 8.2 15.0 .545 0.0 0.1 .000 3.2 3.9 .812 2.7 8.6 11.3 3.5 1.0 0.5 2.3 3.1 19.6
Love 60 22 1714 6.1 13.6 .450 0.7 2.2 .330 4.7 5.8 .815 4.8 9.1 13.8 2.9 0.9 0.5 2.5 2.9 17.7

Advanced
Plyr G MP PER TS% eFG% ORB% DRB% TRB% AST% STL% BLK% TOV% USG% ORtg DRtg OWS DWS WS WS/48
Lee 81 3019 22.2 .584 .545 8.4 27.6 17.9 17.5 1.4 1.0 11.9 23.8 116 108 7.4 2.9 10.3 0.163
Love 60 1714 20.7 .549 .478 14.5 28.6 21.5 12.9 1.3 1.0 13.2 22.4 113 109 3.4 1.5 4.9 0.138

They look fairly comparable to me (maybe Lee's are a bit better but he played for D'Antoni which inflates numbers too).

Love being 21 and Lee 27 is the biggest difference IMO.

55% to 45% is a pretty big difference. Also remember that Lee played at center most of last year, so his stats were put up on bigger players. Love only shot 45% against guys his own size.

Shot chart likely makes the difference on the %.

I am still hoping the Lee trade falls through simply because I wanna see Love with a full-time starting job and I like the Darko/Love/Pekovic 3-man group if we are able to add an athletic 3/4 defensive type.

Or if Johnson solidify himself as a weakside 3/4 defender. Always possible, although Josh Smith is my goal.

revprodeji wrote:Shot chart likely makes the difference on the %.

It doesn't seem to have last year's stats, but here are from 2008-2009:





http://www.nba.com/celtics/stats/hotzone.html

62% vs. 53% under the basket.

A rougher version of shot locations and their percentages from them is here.

http://www.hoopdata.com/player.aspx?name=David%20Lee

http://www.hoopdata.com/player.aspx?name=Kevin%20Love

2009-2010, Using HoWo's links:

At Rim
Lee: 66.1%
Love: 56.2%

Under 10 Feet
Lee: 45.3%
Love: 41.7%

10 to 15 Feet
Lee: 49.6%
Love: 32.1%

16 to 23 Feet
Lee: 43.0%
Love: 38.0%

Threes
Lee: 0-8
Love: 35-106

Interesting that Lee is a better 10-23 then love.

From what knicks fans told me he went from having very little range a few years ago to having a very good jumper out to 18 feet now. He has improved each year, with several different coaches during that time. Other than his age, I really like him, and Love.