David Lee wants more minutes, but the Boston Celtics don’t have them to dole out, which clearly means a trade request is on the way.
Or not.
From Mass Live’s Jay King:
Asked directly about possibly requesting a trade due to disappearing playing time, Boston Celtics big man David Lee said he has not considered such a drastic course of action yet.
“We’ll see moving forward how permanent this is,” Lee said Wednesday night after his second straight DNP-CD resulted in a 99-94 loss to the Detroit Pistons. “Obviously I’m very confident I can help a team win. I’d love for that to be the Boston Celtics. So no, I haven’t spoken about that. I haven’t really thought about that yet. Right now it’s about continuing to be ready, and if that was talked about it would be between my agent, the Celtics and other teams. At this point I’m excited to get back on the floor and play minutes for the Celtics, and hopefully that will be tomorrow night, and play minutes, and help us win the game.”
Players want to play, and there’s nothing Lee says here that’s truly terrible. He’s averaging fewer minutes per appearance than he did with the Golden State Warriors last season, and he’s been benched three times (two inactives, one DNP) over the last five games. So of course he’s disappointed.
Thing is, there’s not much he can do. The Celtics have a ton of talent at basically every position. It’s especially true in the frontcourt. Jared Sullinger, Amir Johnson, Kelly Olynyk and Jonas Jerebko are all ahead of him in the rotation, and even Jae Crowder dips his feet in the power forward pool every now and then. The Celtics just don’t have a place for Lee. He’s a crafty passer with a nice mid-range game, but he doesn’t space the floor enough to play the 4 these days, and his presence at the 5 makes Boston vulnerable at the rim.
Requesting a trade at this point won’t do much. Lee is being paid $15.5 million this season, a cap hit no team will absorb without sending the Celtics some unwanted long-term salary in return, and they don’t have any incentive to compromise their financial flexibility moving forward.
Negotiating a buyout later in the season is more likely, once the Celtics know for sure they won’t be using Lee moving forward.
