Sneak preview: Courtney Lee

This Saturday night, Tennessee will take on Western Kentucky at the Sommet Center in Nashville. I’ll do a full game preview tomorrow, but the Hilltoppers have a player I’d like to single out and talk about a little. I don’t expect to make a habit of this sort of individual analysis, but we’ve had a long layoff between games and Courtney Lee will be one of the best players we face all season.

Lee is a 6′5″, 200 lb Senior wing averaging 21.3 points in 29 minutes per game. He dropped 17 on Tennessee last year and has scored almost 1700 points in this career at WKU. Bruce Pearl has commented that Lee will likely be a 1st round NBA draft pick, and DraftExpress agrees. He’s an athletic wing who shoots 40% from behind the arc, and NBA squads can always use a few of those. DraftExpress has some very nice qualitative analysis of Lee, and if you’re interested I encourage you to check it out. He has an NBA body and has impressed scouts in person.

But you know me . . . I’m a dork. So I’m going to dive into his numbers a bit and see if I can find what makes Lee tick, where the cracks in his game might be, and whether Tennessee can exploit them this weekend.

He is a solid perimeter shooter, making 36.4% of his 3-point baskets this year and about 40% for his career. He doesn’t spend all of his time out there, however, as three-pointers only make up about a third of his total field goal attempts. He’s a very good free throw shooter (86%). Lee also has a great pullup jumper and, like Chris Lofton, has gotten better and better at getting to the rim as he has developed his game. He has 10 dunks in 9 games this season compared to 45 in his previous 91 games as a ‘Topper. He’s a decent rebounder for a wing player, averaging 5.2 RPG for his career.

Let’s dig a little deeper and look at his tempo-free stats (as always, courtesy of Kenpom.com), starting with this season. Here is Lee’s relevant line:

117.3 (Ortg), 31.8 (%poss), 37.1 (%shots), 56.5 (eFG%), 9.6 (Dreb%), 6.6 (Oreb%), 13.2 (Arate), 17.3 (TOrate), 3.6 (%blocks), 5.7 (%steals)

His offensive rating is good (ranked #283), but not what you’d expect from a 1st round draft pick. The next two stats show you why he’s scoring so much– he uses 31.8% of WKU’s possessions while he’s in the game, and takes 37.1% of its shots. Those numbers are both top 25 in the country, and could be interpreted a few ways. His team leans on him to take shots and make plays– that much is clear. He may also be a bit of a ball hog. He shoots well, though, with an eFG% ranked #322, so he’s the guy you want to have the ball anyway.

He’s a hard worker, as evidenced by his defensive stats– he ranks among the nation’s top 400 in blocks and top 25 in steals. That’s excellent for a guy who doesn’t defend the post or the point. WKU plays mostly zone, so he’s not typically matched up 1-on-1 anyway.

All of the above have been fairly consistent throughout Lee’s career at WKU– a good but not phenomenal Ortg, good shooting numbers, and very high usage. One other stat has been consistent for Lee too– his assist-to-turnover ratio is less than 1, not good for a guy who handles the ball as much as Lee does. On the year, Lee has dished out just 14 assists and has turned the ball over 25 times. For his career, his A/T ratio is 0.84. His turnover rate is not that bad, really–17.4% is not terrible. But he simply doesn’t set other players up much– his 13.2% assist rate is lower than every guard/wing on Tennessee’s team.

I think this is where Tennessee will attack Lee. If we can have JaJuan Smith or Josh Tabb draped on Lee the whole game, we may be able to force him to choose between passes and bad shots, and according to Lee’s history, he’s more likely to choose bad shots. If we can force him to make tough passes, we know he will turn the ball over some (Lee had 4 TOs and 2 assists vs. Tennessee last year).

WKU has other solid players, but taking Lee out of his game and forcing the others to beat you seems to be the best plan of attack. It will certainly knock them out of rhythm since they are accustomed to Lee taking more than a third of their shots when he’s in the game. Knocking teams out of rhythm is a very effective way to force bad possessions and turnovers. Let’s hope Tennessee can pull that off, contain Lee, and make his teammates beat them. The Vols should be in good shape if they can.