We should have kept Courtney Lee and traded Bradley

[BudweiserCeltic]

At the time Lee was hitting nothing and some people liked him and some, including myself, wanted him gone. who knows who's better but I doubt it makes a difference in where the Celtics finish!!!

You mean as he was on pace to break his career high FG% (which he set in his first year with us by the way)?

It's like people just watched Lee play for the first two months he was with the Celtics and ignored the rest of his time here.

Here's the short:

First year had career high FG% (46.4%), even as he was struggling with his 3-point shooting form, and was a .01 away from his career high in TS%.

In his second year, while with Boston, he was doing even better shooting 49.2% from the floor including career high from 3-point land at 44.2%, all of this on his way to breaking his TS% as well with a 57.3%.

[pearljammer10]

Without question we should have.

Lee was playing the same type of ball hawking defense as Bradley when he came into games, is a much better team defender, and is a much better all around offensive player who also shoots better.

And now not only is he a better player...he is even cheaper.

[pearljammer10]

Sorry, I forgot that here on CB we all base our judgement of players based on what they achieve over the first 10 games of a season...not the results they have achieved over 9 highly mediocre NBA seasons.

What about 4 overrated, highly mediocre injury riddled seasons with only a stretch of 14 good games over that time period?

[Chris22]

Bradley is too small to play the two and can't dribble well enough to play the point.

Lee has some size at least to defend the two.

Which raises the question...Are we the smallest team in the NBA?

[Yoki_IsTheName]

Yeah. I didnt really like that trade to begin with.

We moved him to free up some room, only to give it to Avery and he's not living up to that contract. Outside of on ball defense, Lee is better than Avery across the board and, as Eddie Vedder (pearljammer10) stated, he doesnt cost as much.

Yeah I think we blew that.

[D.o.s.]

'Should have' kept or 'Should've' kept.

[Boris Badenov]

'Should have' kept or 'Should've' kept.

I of been feeling like this is a losing battle.

[moiso]

'Should have' kept or 'Should've' kept.

Yeah the title was bugging me too  but I didn't want to mention it.

[fairweatherfan]

I could care less about the title, for all intensive purposes we know what OP means.  It doesn't loose anything by having a tiny typoe.

Lee was traded because he was a longer-term deal that we wanted to shed, but then signing Bradley to a longer, more expensive deal doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense.  I'm guessing management believes Lee's around his ceiling already and Bradley has a lot of room to improve.  Time will tell but I haven't seen any major improvements in Bradley's game in a couple seasons.

[slamtheking]

'Should have' kept or 'Should've' kept.

Yeah the title was bugging me too  but I didn't want to mention it.

agreed.  I see things like that and, to me at least, the OP's argument/viewpoint takes an immediate hit to its credibility.  not picking on this OP in particular, just posters in general

[pearljammer10]

Yeah. I didnt really like that trade to begin with.

We moved him to free up some room, only to give it to Avery and he's not living up to that contract. Outside of on ball defense, Lee is better than Avery across the board and, as Eddie Vedder (pearljammer10) stated, he doesnt cost as much.

Yeah I think we blew that.

TP Yokster...TP.

[Celtics4ever]

On a good team ideally both are coming off the bench.

[MBunge]

Sorry, I forgot that here on CB we all base our judgement of players based on what they achieve over the first 10 games of a season...not the results they have achieved over 9 highly mediocre NBA seasons.

What about 4 overrated, highly mediocre injury riddled seasons with only a stretch of 14 good games over that time period?

Injury riddled, yes, but it's more accurate to say Bradley had an often horrific rookie year, then had a breakout his second year, made another significant step forward his fourth year and has now started the first ten games of this season looking like the sort of player who can be good on a good team but bad on a bad team.  Bradley's also averaged more points the last two seasons than Lee ever did for any team over the first 8 years of his career.

Mike

[Vox_Populi]

Sorry, I forgot that here on CB we all base our judgement of players based on what they achieve over the first 10 games of a season...not the results they have achieved over 9 highly mediocre NBA seasons.

What about 4 overrated, highly mediocre injury riddled seasons with only a stretch of 14 good games over that time period?

What is it about Bradley that is overrated?

[Evantime34]

Wait so we should have kept a 29 year old SG over a 23 year old SG on a rebuilding team? Bradley is a lot more likely to improve at his age than Lee.

Edit: What B-ballTim said on the first page.

Also Lee was not a good team defender, as someone mentioned previously. He never clicked with Doc because he was hesitant to shoot and his rotations were poor.