https://youtu.be/YXN_42t94ZU
Saben Lee. Just say the name out loud. That’s a name that’s infused with primal athletic force. It’s like the phrase that God uttered to breathe the game of basketball into existence as clouds of formless stellar dust swirled around him. It’s like Gaben of Valve and Half Life fame was combined with Saber, which is the name of a cool weapon.
Lee lived up to the high quality of his name by providing us with high quality of basketball in this game against the ever-mediocre Orlando Magic. Lee’s name is somewhat forgotten among the large bundle of rookies on the Pistons roster which features bigger names like Killian Hayes, Saddiq Bey, and Isaiah Stewart (as well as the obscure Deividas Sirvydis), but he’s making a name for himself with 12 and now 21 points in the last two games. Not like he needed to make a name for himself. He already had a name. A pretty good name, if you ask me.
As long as starting PG Delon Wright continues to be injured, Lee will continue to get opportunities. I think he’s already played well enough to earn some rotation minutes once Wright comes back, but we’ll have to see if he plays well enough that the Pistons simply sell off Wright at the trade deadline for “draft compensation”. If you’re a veteran player, that’s the entire point of playing for a bad team: you get to put up stats for a while and then get traded to a playoff team who wants to bolster their bench. Wright should be happy that Lee is playing this well, possibly freeing him from the torment of continuing to play at Jet’s Pizza Arena.
I know it’s not called Jet’s Pizza Arena, but it should be, god damn it.