Lee played with Harrington and Chandler as his frontcourt mates for much of the season (although for 11 games the strategy was basically for no one besides Zach Randolph to hit the offensive glass); however, he’s put up better rebounding numbers than Millsap ever season. All else equal his rebound rate would probably get slightly worse with better rebounders around him (his worst rebounding season as spent with Zach, but he still had a rebound rate of 17.5), but he’s consistently been slightly better on the glass than Millsap (career average rebound rate of 18.3 v. 17.0). Of course, I can’t say what would happen if they switched spots.

Lee has also consistently put up better TS% and eFG% than Millsap (career 60.8 and 56.4 v. 56.6 and 52.3). Until this season he was used less offensively, but last season his efficiency numbers were still better than Millsap’s. If Curry’s right, Lee’s scoring volume may decrease. But he’s played with Eddy in past seasons and still put up great efficiency numbers: his incredible career year with 65.2% TS% and 60% eFG% came during Eddy Curry’s career year, when Eddy led the Knicks with almost 3000 minutes.

I understand your intuition, and based on the evidence we have to date I don’t think Lee and Millsap are very far apart as players. Just making points about pace and quality of teammates.

Yes I agree. Pace is irrelevant to shooting and efficiency percentages, but when you say “rate” are you referring to PER 36?

I do not think PER 36 numbers are adjusted for pace. They adjust the PER Game stats to minutes for easy comparison, but a player could get more or less possessions per minute depending on pace.

If I’m wrong thanks for the corrrection. :)

Last year Lee spent a lot of time playing C with Harrington or Chandler at PF. Both of those guys are very weak rebounders at the PF position. This year he’s going to spend a lot of time at PF with Milicic, Hill, or Curry at C. While none of those guys is a vacuum cleaner on the boards, they will probably be better as a group than Harrington and Chandler. Even Curry is better than them when in shape. ;)

Intuitively, it seems like that could cause Lee’s rebounding to drop 1 or more per game. I also wonder what’s going to happen to his offensive production if they start running pick and rolls for Eddy instead of him.

Maybe you guys are right, but I’m sure you can understand the intuition.

Thomas,

I think that you’re right that a lot of things could be done to improve the pre-draft process. However, volatility is inherent in the draft process, just like picking stocks. Teams could have a whole year before the draft to prod and poke prospects, and they’d still pick busts and overlook steals.

Rate stats are adjusted for pace, as are shooting %s… so, those numbers are not directly affected by pace.

As far as “competing” with the other bigmen on your own team… Millsap played the majority of his minutes last season with Okur, who is a below-average rebounder and spends as much time on the perimeter as in the paint (71% jumpers last season).

In 2007-2008 Lee played with a very good rebounder, Zach Randolph, and still put up better rebounding numbers than Millsap has either of the past two seasons. Theoretically, playing on a better defensive team should help your defensive rebounding stats (more misses). Utah is a superior defensive team (10th v. 23rd last season), yet Lee is a beast on the D-glass while Millsap stands out on the O-glass (anyone who claims that Lee gets freebees off the O-glass might want to notice that his offensive rebounding rate was down in D’Antoni’s system).

Scoring efficiency is also something that, if anything, you would expect to improve with the quality of your teammates. Millsap played on the 8th best offense, and Lee on the 17th. Their usage rates were pretty close last season. Both are pretty bad jump shooters.

I like both players, and their free agent values have as much to do with circumstances as anything. I just don’t think you can use pace or poor quality teammates as a justification that Millsap is better. At this point it’s hard to argue that Lee is not the better rebounder and more efficient scorer.

Defense is interesting. Defensive +/-s are far from direct indicators of a player’s defensive ability, but I like to at least look at them… if the player makes his team’s defense better or worse year after year I sort of feel like a pattern emerges. The Jazz have been a better defensive team each of the past 3 seasons with Millsap on the court, but they’ve also been a worse defensive team with Boozer on the floor each of those seasons. So, it stands to reason that Millsap is a better defender than Boozer and probably a pretty solid defender overall. Lee has a bad defensive +/- last season, but also played almost exclusively at the 5… The two seasons before that the Knicks were a better defensive team with him on the court. Of course, the Knicks are a worse defensive team to start with than the Jazz. I’d give the edge to Millsap at this point.

1. Participation in at least three but no more than five full speed games. The coaching staff could be selected via lottery. Reps from every team may participate/watch the games.

2. Participation in at least three 1-one-1 drills against players of the same position. Reps from every team….

3. Make the combine meaningful by including drills that actually measure ability rather than physical gifts. What does a standing broad jump or 185 bench press tell you about how well the player can get over a screen, his team defense, whether he can get into the paint, can he run a fast break. Reading about David Noel reminded me of how he was ranked the top athelete in the pre-draft class a few years back (i think it was him) anyway, he can’t stay on a roster. So, the combine tells you very little about how a player can play the game. Teams should have known going in that Korolev wasn’t polished, Tskitishvili can’t shoot, that Shelden Williams is not the next Boozer, and Quincy Douby really can’t do much of anything other than shoot well in drills.

I don’t know how, but this thing has to be fixed. I’m sick of drafting players and then…suprise and the suprise is not often pleasant.

“Trainer Tommy Weatherspoon (trains NFL and MLB players too) says 300-315 is the target weight. He’s at 328 right now.”