David Lee, the Golden State Warriors, and the NBA Draft
The Golden State Warriors are fresh off their NBA Finals victory over LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, winning their first title since 1975. Their parade in Oakland was certainly one to remember, and it seems that spirits are high as they look to build on their success and win back-to-back championships.
Unfortunately, things are looking as if longtime Warriors player, David Lee, won’t be winning his second ring with the Warriors.
According to a report via ESPN, the 32-year-old power forward and 10-year league veteran has come to an agreement with Golden State, one that will see the former All-Star shipped off to a new team.
Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
Lee suffered a hamstring injury early in the season, effectively losing his starting spot to Draymond Green. With the team starting 21-2 with Green as the starting power forward, it became clear to Steve Kerr and his coaching staff that starting Green was in the club’s best interest long term.
Now considered to be past his prime, Lee was relegated to a bench role in which he averaged 7.9 points, 5.2 rebounds and 1.7 assists over the course of 49 games. He also averaged 18.4 minutes per game, shooting 51.1 percent from the field and 65.4 percent from the line.
In the postseason, Lee played a minor, but critical role, providing the team with an offensive burst in the 13 games he played.
Though his averages were low, it was his passing ability that forced defenses to adjust whenever the team decided to play small ball. Renowned for his court vision, Lee proved he still had great value to a team that needed a reliable passer out of the post or off the roll.
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However, the knock on Lee has never been his inability to play the offensive side of the ball or lack of basketball IQ, but rather, his contract. Lee was once the most high profile player to choose the Warriors as a free agent destination, deciding after his lone All-Star season with the New York Knicks to head over to Golden State via sign-and-trade.
During the 2010 offseason, Lee signed a six-year, $80 million deal with Golden State, a contract that has haunted the team for the past couple of seasons. Now in the final year of his contract that’s set to pay him $15.4 million, the Warriors are hoping to dump his salary in hopes of clearing cap space.
The Warriors are definitely looking to re-sign Draymond Green, who’s a restricted free agent this offseason. His play this past year has been nothing short of spectacular, and he’s likely to earn a max contract come signing day. Though if he does, I’m not too sure Warriors owner Joe Lacob would be cool about paying nearly $40 million in JUST luxury tax payments.
via Pro Basketball Talk/NBC Sports:
"Let’s say – perhaps generously – the Warriors decline Marreese Speight’s team option, and Brandon Rush declines his player option. Add a max contract for Draymond Green, the standard 120 percent of scale for the No. 30 pick and four minimum contracts to fill the roster.Using data from Basketball Insiders and the projected luxury-tax line, that’d give Golden State a payroll of $136,078,768 –$99,124,416 in salary and $36,954,352 luxury-tax payments.Remove Lee, and it drops to $86,676,840 –$83,630,736 in salary and $3,046,104 in luxury-tax payments."
As many are aware, Lacob has gone on record to say he’s perfectly fine with venturing across the luxury tax line to keep Green. The expectation is the Warriors will match any offer for Green during the restricted free agent period, and Warriors general manager Bob Myers went on record a few days ago to reiterate the team’s stance on re-signing Green.
What isn’t included in the projection above is the fact the Warriors will also have to think about a new deal for Harrison Barnes, who’s up for an extension this offseason that’s projected to pay him roughly $10 million a year. Both the team and Barnes’ camp reportedly want to pursue an extension.
So with Lee factored into that equation, it would seem like a less-than-ideal situation to be paying off A) a bench player’s enormous contract and B) nearly triple that in luxury tax payments BECAUSE of that bench player’s enormous contract. If we use the Pythagorean theorem to crack this equation, then it would appear that C means Lee’s time in Golden State is up, and that’s the way the triangle offense crumbles.
Now comes my JR Smith-esque no-handed segue into the NBA Draft: the Warriors still have their 2015 first round draft pick, an asset that could develop into a very attractive trade piece come draft day.
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The Warriors have two options when it comes to actually drafting a player with the draft pick: either they draft a shooting guard who could provide shooting off the bench, or they draft a big man who could provide more depth at the four spot.
Both possibilities give the Warriors a low-risk, high-reward option. And a cheap one. For a team that’s looking to win another title, nothing is much better than getting an affordable player that’s capable of coming right into the fold and producing. Dubs don’t need to be wasting their time on a project.
The thing is, I’m not exactly sure if the Warriors are sold on any of the players that are projected to be available at the 30th pick.
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There’s several names being tied to the Warriors via mock drafts, including point guard Terry Rozier, shooters RJ Hunter and Anthony Brown, stretch-four Jonathan Holmes, and power forwards Christian Wood and Chris McCullough. I’d also like to add Rakeem Christmas from Syracuse to that list as my personal favorite, Jordan Mickey out of LSU could be a tweener worth taking a look at at 30 and Guillermo Hernangomez from Spain could be a solid stash pick.
That said, there’s really never a definitive pick at 30. It’s incredibly rare that the 30th pick in any draft pans out to become a franchise’s staple.
In fact, only one really comes to mind, and I’ve just talked about trading him for the past how many minutes you’ve spent reading this article.
So while the goal should be to find a way to ship Lee without having to trade away this year’s draft pick, it wouldn’t exactly hurt the team if they’re not enamored with a draft prospect already.
Lee’s list of possible destinations to go to should include the New Orleans Pelicans, the Boston Celtics, the Los Angeles Lakers and the New York Knicks. All four have a good amount of cap space, all four have some young pieces available if the Warriors’ Executive of the Year so desired them.
Not sure why Lee would want to go back to the Knicks, who has established itself as the knucklehead team of the league after just one season, but that’s all the more reason they could use a stable locker room guy like Lee.
The Lakers has some assets that could be returned on a Lee rental, but I’m unsure about how Lee would feel about being in LA. Boston is interesting, a playoff team in the Eastern Conference that could definitely use a veteran presence as it transitions back to being a playoff contender.
My favorite, however, is New Orleans, which will see it’s first year under former Warriors associate head coach, Alvin Gentry. The Pels were swept by the Warriors in the first round of the 2015 playoffs, but there’s no denying there’s overflowing potential on that team. With Omer Asik on the way out, New Orleans could use another veteran big to replace him.
Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports
There’s obviously some familiarity there, both with Gentry and former Warriors assistant, Darren Erman, who was hired as Gentry’s assistant a few days ago. And the Pelicans’ bigs could definitely shore up Lee defensively.
But best of all, Lee’s passing ability alongside Anthony Davis could prove dangerous both underneath the basket and in pick-and-roll action. And you thought that The Brow in PnR couldn’t get much better.
All four aforementioned teams could use all the help they can get in their continued development, so to say the Warriors’ first round pick this year is off limits would bring Lee’s chances of staying with Golden State up to around 75 percent. Teams know GSW doesn’t necessarily need it, so it’s expected that teams will make their pitch for it.
Again — best case scenario is the Warriors trade Lee without including the pick and draft an affordable player that can produce immediately. But as Lee’s six year deal proved, not everything works out as hoped, and the reality is that packaging Lee with the pick would make taking a player that’s past his prime a necessary evil…or it’d at least make taking his contract somewhat less difficult to swallow.