Tip-In Points Isolation: Courtney Lee
Remember the 19th century baseball poem “Casey at the Bat?” No? Okay, well do you remember seventh grade? No, again? Geez. How ’bout wearing sweat pants? Remember wearing those on a weekday? You wear them on weekdays now? Um, okay. After this, we’re gonna have to discuss that. For now, think back to a time where no one pitied you for wearing sweatpants on a weekday. Remember that? Yeah. Great. The year after that is when you read “Casey at the Bat.” It was a poem about a baseball team in a close game and their best hitter at the plate and ready to win it for his team. He ends up striking out and crushing the spirit of everyone he’s ever come in contact with because of it, but it’s all made especially depressing because Casey never felt in danger of failing. Mikhail Prokhorov reminds me of Casey. And you best believe New Jersey is the rest of Mudville.
Prokhorov was going to change the Nets. He was going to bring LeBron aboard (strike one), along with another big free agent (strike two, unless Jordan Farmar is considered big – which he is not) and he was going to create a playoff-worthy team in 2011 that would win a championship by 2015 (probably strike three). And he made Nets fans confident that it would happen. Then it didn’t and what is happening in New Jersey makes the back of my eyeballs hurt.
Anthony Morrow as your team’s biggest acquisition will do that to eyeballs. This isn’t to say Anthony Morrow isn’t a good acquisition – he is. It is. They both is. Whatever. Bone Morrow is capable of giving fantasy owners 15 points and 2-3 treys a night. But he won’t. Not this year. Not this team. Not playing the 27-30 minutes a game he’ll manage to steal from sophomore Terrence Williams and third-year Courtney Lee. Morrow has the highest upside of this trio. Williams is the most likely to develop more of a small forward’s game and Lee is the best defender. But anything Lee can do Morrow can do better is the tune I’d sing if Annie got her gun, stuck it to my head and told me sing her a story.
You’re all into musical theater, right?
There’s worth here. And there. And right there. No, not there. That’s Johan Petro. Behind him. There. But come draft day, I’d wait to grab Lee three or four rounds later than when it feels right or not at all until the picture becomes clearer in Mudville. 31 mpg / .440 / .855 / 0.9 3pt / 11.5 pts / 2.8 rbd / 2.2 ast / 1.0 stl / 0.4 blk / 2.0 tov
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