Diss Guy: David Lee
Eight years of waiting led up to an important moment for David Lee yesterday afternoon: his first playoff game. Eight years also led up to an important moment yesterday afternoon: his first major injury as an NBA professional. With about seven minutes left to go in the fourth quarter, David Lee took a hard spill and landed on his leg awkwardly. He immediately went for his hip. He took his free throws, turned and tried to run, but doubled up and immediately headed to the bench. X-rays after the game were negative, but the MRI showed a complete tear of his hip flexor. And that was that. Out for the playoffs. Unsure about the start of the regular season.
There are three ways, really, to look at this injury: the short, long and full term. In the short term, life obviously gets harder for the Warriors, but nothing is over. Indeed, Lee lead the league in double doubles, was the Warriors leading rebounder, and most versatile post player. But the Nuggets are a hard charging team, and the Warriors can trot out a smallish lineup to try and keep up (at least points wise) while relying on rickety Andrew Bogut to man the middle. In the long term, a torn hip flexor is not a career-ending injury. Most reports eyeball Lee’s recovery time being between three and six months, well within the timeframe of the offseason.
But it is the full term picture — everything about the injury, and what it represents on the whole for Lee — that makes us sad. Most know about David Lee’s long wait to get to the postseason, and the fact that his playoff run lasted not even a game is a basketball tragedy of the highest order. But Lee’s were the broad shoulders that carried the Warriors from rags to riches; the first major signing of the Lacob-Gruber ownership group who dutifully produced laudable numbers for a bad team with new bosses. When the team was tanking in the spring of 2012, desperately trying to suck enough to keep its draft pick, it was Lee who blindly got double-double’s, hustling hard for an irrelevant squad. When Curry rose to near superstardom in the second part of this season, Lee quietly ceded possessions and spotlight to his running mate, for the good of the team on the court, and for the marketability off the court. David Lee made the Warriors possible, and were he not there, they’d be at home, with the rest of us, watching the postseason on television.
I’m not a Warriors pessimist anymore. I do not believe in curses and roll my eyes at talk of hexes. I will believe in science, the bigger picture, and the likes. David Lee won’t play this postseason. But he’ll play next season. And postseason, too.
But I’ll miss him in the interim. D-Lee, my man. Get well soon.
Miss Guy: The First Weekend of the Playoffs
The only exciting game this weekend was Denver Nuggets’ 99-97 home victory against the Golden State Warriors, a game whose outcome displeased me for a variety of reasons (see above). And even worse? Not a single other game to have gotten excited about. The home teams went 7-0 in the first weekend of play, with the average games being decided by 14 points. The Bulls got blown out by 27. Memphis lost by 21. The Bucks fell 23 points short. Pretty noncompetitive, boring basketball. I slept through most of yesterday’s games (after the Warriors game).
Right now, OKC leads Houston by 2 late in the 2nd quarter. Maybe it stays close. This might be our saving grace for opening weekend for the NBA Postseason. Wheels up to tomorrow’s games, I guess.