Despite him playing out of position and having a little success guarding some of the elite big man ( shaq, ducan,yao). He is by far the worst help defender I ever seen.

Lee is a numbers guy, his 20 and 10 average is starting to become arcade like. His impact on the game is becoming more and more about stats and not wins. Count less times perimeter players run right by him with very little resistance, he is ridiculously slow footed, and pays no attention to the weak side of the court.

For the life of me, he will not develope a simple pump fake to draw fouls (which has the biggest impact on a game) despite him being a solid fnisher. It was easy for me to overlook this because what he brings on the other end, but lets face it, he is no where near a franchise player because he cant impact the game, doesn't want the ball in the clutch, has a (block my shot) post up game. Him and duhon make that pick roll look like stockon and malone on one paly, then theres is a lot of times (like the miami game) there f...g clueless. His adjustments when teams start to defend the roll, is high school IQ like. He continues to roll all the way to the hoop and gets his shot block, when he should have stop mid way to the rim for a pull up.


Im sure this has been argued a 1000 times and more, but he is a clear example of statistics that don't tell the story. I don't see lee developing to any thing more then a troy murphy or brad miller. He may have Rodman like rebounding numbers, may even avg 14rbs pg at some point.
But lets face it, he wont turn in to no moses or karl malone ever. He has a 70's 80's type of game, when the avg height for a fwd/C was 6 9". It's no wonder block shots were even recorded back then.

He is a nice addition to a team with at least 1 super star (wade,bron,paul,) and a bonifide big man who is a very good shot blocker and team defender ( camby, dewight, Dalmbrt). Other then that he is extremly expendable.

He gets the deer in the head lights look when guys are attacking the hoop....

There was a play in miami where someone drove right past lee and he didn't budge. Knicks called a time out and HUGHES went over to lee and was pointing to the rim, and did a pushing motion with his forearm. He obviously was telling lee he had to stop the ball.

Who do you blame?...Herb Williams is supposed to be the tough guy, big mans coach. Automatically I would have pointed tips out to Lee about what he needs to do....

Its like Lee is afraid to get a foul....he's got to be more aggressive. He can take 2-3 hard fouls a night....the Knicks now have wilcox to fall back on if lee gets in foul trouble. Lee needs to mix it up. He doesn't.

Now I'll bring up nate here cuz peeps seem to think lee is worth more cuz Nate is too much of a risk.....well Nate has his flaws but you don't have to tell him to fly in there and contest a yao ming shot, or jump in shaqs lap to prevent the lob...jump in there and help the forwards rebound with 4-5 a game...

Its an issue. Lee needs to get dirty. He had to bring that bang so he can earn his money. The rebounds and hustle is great but his job is to protect the paint. He has never done that.

Maybe Lee doesn't want to foul out and put his double/double streak in jeopardy

Lift weights.

1. He doesn't know how to play defense.

2. He doesn't want to play defense.

3. He doesn't want to mess with his playing time.

he's really late on rotations & never wants to get posterized so he usually allows guys a clear path to the hole once they've beaten the guys guarding them... i wish he'd throw his body underneath to draw a charge every once in a while at the very least... that's the 1 thing that Jared Fishlips does pretty well.

[Edited by - TMS on 03-02-2009 09:46 AM]

Posted by TMS:

he's really late on rotations & never wants to get posterized so he usually allows guys a clear path to the hole once they've beaten the guys guarding them... i wish he'd throw his body underneath to draw a charge every once in a while at the very least... that's the 1 thing that Jared Fishlips does pretty well.

[Edited by - TMS on 03-02-2009 09:46 AM]

All you have to do is look at the Blazers game at the end. Watch Lee fly by without giving any resistance to Roy. All Lee had to do was basically stop and cover his nuts and he might of got a charge or he would altered Roy's shot.

David Lee is a really good basketball player. His positives outweigh his negatives by miles. I hate to be a broken record but why did we draft a non-defender 6th when looking at our personnel?
Our defense was our worst area.

Posted by knicks1248:

As long as he plays defense like that and not have a real impact, he
s a mid level contract player, no more then 6/7mill per. layden would would probably have max him already, and IT would have traded him for some other one demensional player.
So i'll give walsh a little credit for holding tight. Also It's evident that MDA is starting to notice this by he's recent benching in 4th qrtr the other night. notice he told him ( you still got your dbl/dbl) when coaxing his ego.

if you think David is an MLE or $6/7 per year guy, you are waaaayyyy off.

And if you think MDA's recent benching was anything more than trying to pull a big man away from the basket, you are smoking something.

Ok 2 things...

1. Stop giving the man excuses. Playing out of position is bull****. There are centers and power fwds bigger and smaller than David Lee. Stop bringing this up. He's a power fwd and he needs to take better care of the paint period.....he's not playing in patrick ewings era where every team had a decent legit 7fter on the team.

2. He is been playing the same way since he's been in the nba....so saying he is playing for a contract in invalid.

Posted by VDesai:

Posted by martin:

i would agree that David has to get better on D in a lot of areas but the team does too. D is a lot about trust and the Knicks as a whole haven't had that in many years. Gotta break the habits.

That's the truth. I don't understand why Lee is always isolated on this issue when its the same thing for virtually everyone on the team.

The same reason for Marbury when he was here, because he is the best player of the team, and we always expect more from them.