Courtney Lee was one of the greatest 3-and-D wings in Memphis Grizzlies history
By Ian Levy
Throughout the “Grit-and-Grind” era, the Memphis Grizzlies have struggled to find the right wing players to complement the bruising Mike Conley-Zach Randolph-Marc Gasol core. Tony Allen was a beautiful fit defensively but his poor outside shooting collapsed the interior spacing and put a ceiling on the team’s offensive potential. Over the past few years, the team has tried out a steady stream of wing players, looking for someone who could hold the team’s defensive integrity and still help spread the floor at the other end. It’s been Tayshaun Prince, O.J. Mayo, Mike Miller, Vince Carter, Jeff Green, Matt Barnes, Sam Young, and, for the past season-and-a-half, Courtney Lee.
Yesterday, the Grizzlies traded Lee to Charlotte in a multi-team deal that netted them P.J. Hairston, Chris Andersen and four second-round picks. Both Hairston and Andersen are likely to be gone at the end of the season. Lee was a free agent as well, which basically implies the Grizzlies preferred the value proposition of finding a cheaper replacement for Lee in free agency or among those second-rounders.
On paper, Lee seemed like an ideal fit when Memphis acquired him. He was a solid wing defender and a very good three-point shooter, exactly the framework of skills they were looking for. The problem was not really his performance in those areas. In fact, he was among the best 3-and-D wings in franchise history. The graph below shows every guard or forward to play at least 5,000 career minutes for the Grizzlies while shooting better than 25 percent on three-pointers. They are graphed by their three-point percentage and their Defensive Box Plus-Minus. The size of each point reflects their three-point attempts per 100 possessions.
Lee’s Defensive Box Plus-Minus in Memphis was 0.0, exactly average, and he made 37.7 percent of this three-pointers with the team. Lee and Shane Battier are the only wings in this data set to provide average or better defensive production and make better than 37 percent of their threes. Battier was a much better defender but Lee also attempted three-pointers slightly more frequently and could certainly lay claim to being one of the greatest 3-and-D players in franchise history.
Obviously, Lee wasn’t traded because he hadn’t held up his end of the bargain in these two areas. It turned out that Memphis actually needed slightly more from that position than just floor spacing. Lee had a tendency to retreat into passivity when it came to attacking off the dribble and hunting for three-point shots. He was also a victim of a team that will be doing some rebuilding, although to what degree remains to be seen. Gasol is done for the rest of the year and Conley is an unrestricted free agent this summer. Some degree of stylistic shift is coming and Memphis may not have wanted to pay Lee’s next, much larger contract if they weren’t certain he was the right complement for their current iteration or their future one.
The good news, for Lee, is that he is on his way to the Charlotte Hornets, a team who doesn’t need backcourt shot creation quite as much as the Grizzlies did. It will be much easier for him to sink in a 3-and-D role with his new team, a role he is clearly well-suited for.