David Lee is Vital to Warriors’ Ultimate Success
I expected David Lee to be dismayed.
You know, like the mom that comes home from work to discover that her kids actually like their babysitter better. The teacher who returns to find his students have finally begun to excel in the subject…when the substitute was there.
I expected him to be lost.
Returning from an injury is always difficult, but returning from an injury during which time your team flourished, excelled, triumphed without you is something wholly more disheartening, more confusing. Lee, the Warriors’ lone All-Star in 2013 and easily one of the two best players on the Warriors roster, got his first taste of this in the 2013 playoffs when Jarrett Jack and Carl Landry, two players that stepped up in his absence, sparked the Warriors on an unexpected playoff surge.
“Trade David Lee!” was one of the mantras of the Warriors fan base that offseason, for his $15 million contract, previously thought of as fair compensation for a premier scoring big man, was now seen as an albatross, a overpayment on the scale of Amare Stoudemire or Charlie Sheen (OK, maybe that’s going a bit far, but you get my point).
Fans pointed to the Warriors’ historically torrid start to this season as proof of Lee’s obsolete-ness and the emergence of Draymond Green as an elite defender and solid stretch-four seemed the solidify the notion that Lee, and his contract, had no place on the hot-shooting, carefree Warriors.
But, as last week’s ice-cold performance against the Clippers (no, not like the”Bud Light Ice Cold Performance of the Game,” it was an actual loss to a sub-40% shooting team) reminded us Warriors fans: we need David Lee.
Because, truth is, the David Lee that emerged in the Warriors’ ugly loss was neither dismayed nor lost. He entered as the seventh man, a role he should continue to fill despite the eventual return of Andrew Bogut. He entered as a scorer for the second unit, a unit that is ripe with athleticism and length but lacking a go-to scoring threat. He made all five of his attempts from the field. He showed flashes of a jumper. He was, in short, just what the Warriors have needed.
He was far from perfect, mind you. Lee committed three signature Lee fouls, dainty swats on the arm that DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin brushed off like a rampaging bull tearing through annoying foliage, instead of providing a real rim-protecting presence. He didn’t aggressively look for his shot.
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But that will come with time, and, when it does, the Warriors are going to be better off because of it. Despite how great the Warriors have been, they are significantly worse with Stephen Curry off of the floor. And when Curry’s shot isn’t falling, or he’s in early foul trouble, like he was against the Clippers? Then forget it.
Draymond Green and Marreese Speights, the Warriors’ two other power forwards, are currently in the midst of career seasons. But their starts have been so torrid, so unprecedented that it is improbable that there won’t be some eventual regression: Green is averaging double his previous career average, and Speights has been averaging a ridiculous 25 points per 36 minutes, six points higher than his previous career high. Both guys are playing out of their minds, but when they eventually come back down to Earth, the Warriors will need Lee, an established, consistent big man who has averaged 16 or more points for six straight years.
So, despite the fact that Lee has lost favor with much of the Warrior fan base, and will likely not reclaim his starting position, there’s no reason for him to be dismayed or lost: he can be to go to scorer for the second unit, one of the most overqualified but cold shooting second units in the league. The Spurs have been doing it for years, bringing a top scorer, Manu Ginobli, off of the bench in order to spark the second unit. Lee can be the Warriors’ super-sub.
Because a confident, looking-to-score David Lee, not dismayed by his team’s recent spurt without him but instead driven to help his team find ultimate success, is exactly what the Warriors need.