BOSTON - For the first time in his now 11-year NBA career, David Lee's name was announced to cheers at the TD Garden.
Lee was on Team White to begin Boston's open practice scrimmages Tuesday night at the TD Garden, starting in a lineup along with Marcus Smart, Avery Bradley, Evan Turner, and Tyler Zeller.
Lee was traded over to the Celtics this offseason from the World Champion Golden State Warriors. Coming from the best team in the league to a young, hopefully up-and-coming team may not sit well with some players, but Lee is taking it all in stride and enjoying his first few days in camp with his new teammates.
"We have a lot of energy going into every single day and we have a lot of depth at every position with youth so it's good to have that competition and with the youth comes a lot of energy, comes a lot of competitiveness," Lee said. "And there's been some very spirited practices thus far and that's always fun because you come to work every single day either way so to be able to enjoy this and get the intense practices we've been getting has been very important."
What Lee's role will be on this team is yet to be determined, but the same can be said for a number of players as Brad Stevens is just beginning to see who fits where and with who. But one thing Stevens and the Celtics know about Lee is that he's an established veteran and somebody who can be very valuable on a young team.
"I try to lead by example," Lee said. "I think I set a pretty good example with how hard I work. I know that when I was a young guy, I never responded that well to the veterans that wanted to give a 20 minute speech every day. So while I'll pull guys aside if I see something I can help them with, I'm going to be a guy that's instead going to try to lead by doing the right things and taking care of business on the floor. If your veterans do that then the young guys will follow."
Hopefully the young guys noticed Lee's play Tuesday night in the Garden. While he wasn't the focal point of the offense, Lee looked good in transition and made more than a few nice passes. There's plenty of value in big men who can pass, and the ball movement with Lee on the court was apparent.
Fellow big man Kelly Olynyk led all players in scoring (my partner A. Sherrod Blakely charted 17 points) as Team Green beat Team White, 63-59, but at this stage in camp it's more about getting things down defensively than offensively, and Lee understands that.
"I think the biggest thing in training camp that the coaches have been trying to do is obviously establish how we want to play everything X's and O's wise and the biggest thing is setting up that mindset," Lee said. "Because as you know defense is a mindset and going out there and giving the effort so once he's put in the X's and O's we've had no problem with the effort part of it. We have a group that really plays hard and takes pride in it. So that's been the biggest thing is for the new guys kind of establishing how he wants to play things defensively and then from that point it's just really putting the work in every day and drill it in."