April 29, 2010
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J.—The slump started early. Courtney Lee played well during the preseason (16.2 PPG, .528 FG%), but shot 2-for-11 in the first game that counted, missing all four of his threes and totaling five points as the Nets lost to the Timberwolves, 95-93.
Lee rebounded for 18 points against the Magic, but needed 17 shots to do it, connecting on only six. By the time he injured his groin against Philadelphia on November 6, Lee had opened his Nets career shooting 22-of-70 (.314). After missing seven games, it took two brief (13 minutes combined), scoreless appearances to ease back in; Lee finally topped 50 percent in a single game with a 6-for-9, 15-point showing against the Lakers in November’s final game.
The following Friday, it seemed Lee arrived: he scored a career-high 27 points (11-16 FGs, 3-4 3Ps) to lead the Nets to their first victory of the season, a 97-91 win against the Bobcats. But Lee went 5-for-18 the next two games, and remained quiet offensively for much of the next two months, save for the occasional flash of brilliance, like his 28 points, five threes and six assists against the Hornets on January 8.
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It’s the kind of prolonged stretch that can cause even the most confident shooter to waver. Lee locked on to knowledge of self – he had always been a scorer, having averaged 20 points as a college senior, until his rookie season with the loaded Orlando Magic demanded he evolve. After Lee established himself as a defense-first, spot-up shooting threat (.404 3P%, .450 FG%) during the Magic’s run to the NBA Finals, the Nets saw enough potential that they targeted the young guard as the key to their eventual trade of Vince Carter.
Thrust into the core conversation once arriving in New Jersey, Lee knew that he’d be expected to play a bigger role, which meant incorporating the additional elements of his game to a revived scorer’s mentality.
But from that first game, the clean shots kept clanking, and Lee had no option other than drawing on the successful outings and coaching reinforcement while showing up early and staying late to shoot.
“You’ve got to know yourself,” Lee says. “I’ve always been a shooter, and my whole life I shot a good percentage. Starting off the season early shooting a low percentage, you can’t get down on yourself. You’ve got to continue to do what you’ve been doing: continue to work and get extra shots up – then it will turn around. And it turned around for me.”
It started on the team’s January trip to the West Coast. Lee shot 5-for-10 against the Clippers, scoring 11 points and kicking off 2 ½ months of offense he expected: 13.5 PPG while shooting .373 from three-point range and .470 overall. Lee topped 15 points 19 times in the final 39 games, after doing so only nine times in the first 42.
“One thing you have to learn in this league is how to deal with adversity,” says Nets interim coach and general manager Kiki Vandeweghe. “At the beginning, Courtney was hurt and wasn’t shooting the ball well, but he worked himself back through just sheer hard work. And he really expanded his game. He was always a good defensive player; now I think he’s much better in the pick-and-roll, much better with his ball-handling. And, to me, he’s been able to create his own shot a lot better. So he’s really become a much more complete player.”
Ah, there it is – the reason the minutes kept coming even as the shots rimmed out regularly for 42 games. Lee started 66 of 71 games, averaging no fewer than 31 minutes in any month of the season, due to his contributions in other aspects of the game.
A nuisance on the ball (averaging 0.28 blocks – twice as many as a league-average guard, according to hoopdata.com) and in the passing lanes (1.31 steals per game, good for 33rd in the league), Lee routinely made game-altering plays on defense. In that breakout December game against the Bobcats, Lee’s biggest contribution came when he picked off a botched handoff between Boris Diaw and Stephen Jackson, slamming home two points on the break and distancing the Nets shortly after Jackson’s back-to-back threes had tied the score with three minutes to play.
Lee also proved he could guard players from point guards to small forwards, often cross-matching while playing alongside backup PGs Keyon Dooling and Chris Quinn to complicate opponents’ ability to initiate their offense. That versatility allows the Nets to switch on pick-and-rolls without thinking about matchups, and – in a team-specific quirk – to pick up the point guard if Devin Harris is ever slow to get up after a particularly contact-laden drive.
With defensive prowess and a commitment to doing anything asked of him earning Lee extended minutes, the second-year player developed his offensive game even as he struggled to find his touch. He improved in the pick-and-roll as the season wore on, and by the end of the year, had quantifiably bettered his shooting from 16-23 feet, according to hoopdata.com.
Last season, Lee shot .360 from that distance; this year, it climbed to .430 – a 19.4 percent increase. On a month-to-month basis, he progressed from a low of .300 in November to a season-high .529 in February before finishing the season with .478 and .479 marks in March and April.
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“He came in known more as a defender, but I think he’s increased his midrange game, running the pick-and-roll,” Harris says. “That wasn’t a (strength) coming into the season, but I think as the year’s gone on, he’s really gotten better at getting his shot and as well as doing some things out of it.”
Building on that success will be an offseason priority for Lee, who will spend much of his time at the IMG Basketball Academy in Bradenton, Fla., according to the Newark Star-Ledger. Vandeweghe said that ball-handling should lead the list, because though Lee has established himself as a great defender of point guards, developing his ability to bring the ball upcourt and distribute it would compound that pressure on the other end.
Lee confirmed that he was planning on participating in as many ball-handling and pick-and-roll drills as possible, with an eye on helping to stretch the floor and force defenses to make difficult choices. While perfecting that aspect of his game, Lee will be motivated by a tough season from which he hopes the Nets can soon distance themselves.
“It was a lot different from last year,” Lee says. “It was basically what builds character: you come over here, to a situation you’re not used to, and have to develop from that.
“It’s going in the right direction. This year was a year that was going to be tough for us; it was basically a rebuilding year. But hopefully everything just comes together like a puzzle and works out for us.”
