21 Reasons Why Knicks Shouldn't Break Bank With David Lee
By: Christopher Reina
RealGM.com Writer


May 4, 2009 1:49 PM
David Lee was ranked 11th in season FIC and 'deserved' to make a salary of $18.1M in 2008-09. Generously, I think he is worth half that much, approximately $9M and change. So in honor of 42 being reduced in value two times, here are 21 reasons why the Knicks shouldn't go crazy trying to keep David Lee.

1. There is no player on the Knicks' roster worth keeping if it means compromising the odds of signing you know who.

2. The Knicks were a net 1.8 points per 100 possessions better without David Lee during the 2008-09 season, with the difference being defensively.

3. As Lee's usage rate has increased, his offensive rating has declined in each of the past two seasons after topping out at 127 in 06-07. It decreased to a still very solid 118 this season, which was 14th in the NBA.

4. His propensity to shoot jumpers increased this season and his eFG% was just 35.2%, compared to 44.5% for Amare Stoudemire, 41.6% for David West and 41.6% for LaMarcus Aldridge.

5. How will LeBron, Gallinari and Lee effectively share the floor together, particularly on defense?

6. While he is an efficient offensive player, his scoring is almost entirely predicated on assisted opportunities, with 64% of his inside shots and 75% of his jumpers (each on the very high end of the NBA).

7. A pairing of Lee and Galinari at the two forward positions will be the NBA's worst defensive pairing outside of when Mike Dunleavy and Troy Murphy played those positions for Golden State.

8. He is clearly a rebound stat padder; there is virtually no difference in how effectively the Knicks rebound with or without him on the floor.

9. The difference between his defensive rebound percentage and offensive percentage, further suggest he wouldn't be such a prolific rebounder if he played for another club.

10. If the Knicks are able to sign a second max player in 2010, there is a chance that the player will be either Chris Bosh or Amare Stoudemire.

11. He's no David Wright.

12. Lee has only blocked 94 shots in 8040 career minutes, which works out to be one for every 86 minutes of floor time. There will never be any talk about avoiding Signor Bargnani's neighborhood, but he had 97 blocks last season alone.

13. He is not an especially skilled passer.

14. The Knicks have posted 111 wins and 217 losses over the four seasons off Lee's tenure with the club. To his credit, Lee has certainly had more to do with the 111 wins than the 217 losses.

15. Josh Smith could only muster $58.5 million over five years from the Grizzlies as a restricted free agent last summer on a day in which the Dow Jones closed at 11,782.35.

16. The majority of Lee's offense comes on pick and rolls to the bucket.

17. Andrew Bogut's extension was worth $60M over five-years.

18. Lee is not a reliable offensive threat in the low-post, scoring mainly on pick and slip situations.

19. Lee's Roland Rating (82games.com statistic developed by Roland Beech) was -0.8, which was behind Nate Robinson, Jamal Crawford, Zach Randolph, Tim Thomas, Danilo Gallinari and Al Harrington. Overall, Lee was ranked 135th out of the 198 players that played a minimum of 35% of team minutes.

20. At the end of the season, Mike D'Antoni mentioned Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler as the two players he was 'enthused' about heading into the future, but made no mention of Lee. He has consistently appeared reluctant to anoint Lee as the right kind of player for his system.

21. There is no player on the Knicks' roster worth keeping if it means compromising the odds of signing you know who.

Posted by TMS:

i can think of about 50 million reasons why we shouldn't lock him up to longterm dollars.

Posted by BRIGGS:

I don't mind trading David Lee in S+T but this butchering of his play is ridiculous. The guy is a great basketball player. If strategically we need to trade Lee where we get solid value back and hold cap space--that's fine by me but enough with banging on Lee.

Posted by Silverfuel:

Is Lee or his agent asking for $18 million type money? I think everyone agrees he belongs in the $7 to $9 million range! Just sign him for that or sign and trade him. He is a good player but he need a defensive presence. This team has had no defense since Ewing was traded.

Posted by TMS:

Posted by King1:

You could have had Lee for below market if you signed him before the year and Walsh decided not to and everyone praised him for it. The Knicks were 9 games better with lee starting this year. He is a top rebounder in the game and he got 16 points a game. Please give me 5 guys that are free agents that is better than Lee. Please dont say Big baby Lee would have scored 20 a game on Salmons and Davis cant play in MDA offense.

last year we still had Curry & Jefferies contracts to worry about, & still do... Walsh was trying to use Lee's contract to dump 1 of those guys at the trade deadline last year if u recall... the fact that he didn't get it done may have been a miscalculation on his part, but it was an understandable strategy... if he ends up losing Lee for nothing in free agency then u can come back & give all the I Told You So's you like.

as for what FA's are available next year that are better than Lee, that really has nothing to do w/this issue here... the whole point about not signing Lee to a longterm deal is to preserve the cap space in 2010, so the same applies to any other FA you're talking other than star calibre players, & the Knicks don't have the cap space to target anyone else anyways other than the MLE.