Philadelphia 76ers: Bring Damion Lee back to Philly

Free agency is almost upon us, and the Philadelphia 76ers are going to need to go bargain shopping to fill their needs.

Now granted, the team doesn’t exclusively have to go to the canned food section and search for the dented ones to get a discount; Daryl Morey still has access to the TMLE, a $1.669 million trade exception that almost never gets brought up but probably should, and the option to sign as many players as they’d like to veteran minimum contracts. With two roster spots currently unoccupied and the potential to open up as many as four more via team options and/or non-fully guaranteed contracts up very much in play, the Sixers have options to add depth without sacrificing developmental performers and vice versa.

Fortunately, there are a number of interesting options on the margins who could make the team better without breaking the bank – including a few performers who just earned championship rings earlier this month.

At this point, you’ve probably read ad nauseam about Otto Porter and how great of a fit he has been for the Philadelphia 76ers – if not, read about it here – but what if he’s ultimately out of the team’s price range? What if some team offers Porter a contract with an AAV of $10 million, the same price range P.J. Tucker reportedly wants, and the Sixes have to settle for another option? Well, there are a few other members of the Warriors’ roster who are reportedly unlikely to return, according to Anthony Slater of The Athletic, including one who played three quarters of his college career in the City of Brotherly Love.

The Philadelphia 76ers should have Brotherly Love for Damion Lee.

Though it may say Louisville next to his name on basketball cards and on his 2K profile, for three full seasons, Damion Lee was a Drexel Dragon who put in serious work in University City.

That’s right, from 2011-15 – he had a medical hardship waiver in 2013-14 – Lee played 90 games for the Dragons as the focal point of Bruiser Flint’s offense and turned himself into one of the hottest names in the transfer pool when he eventually earned the right to test his mettle against Power-5 opponents with the Louisville Cardinals.

Though his stats took a minor dip after turning in his Drexel blues for Cardinal Red, dropping from 21.4 points to “only” 15.9, he still put in enough work to prove worthy of an NBA shot, where he ultimately latched on with the Atlanta Hawks at the end of the 2017-18 season after successful stints with the Maine Red Claws and the Santa Cruz Warriors.

Now granted, is it a tad unusual to see an NBA player debut at 25? In 2018, during the height of the one-and-done era, you bet, but hey, clearly the Golden State Warriors saw something they liked, as they signed Lee to not one but two two-way contracts before landing a three-year, $4.5 million contract that runs through, well, through Thursday, when he will hit the open market as an unrestricted free agent.

‘Alright, so other than his obvious pedigree as a Philly college kid and an NBA champion, what would make Lee an attractive addition to the Philadelphia 76ers?’

Well, I’m glad you asked; though Lee didn’t consistently start on the Warriors for obvious reasons, he is a good two-way performer who has a career points per game average of 8.2, a career 3-point shooting percentage of 35.7, and a career rebounds per game average of 3.5, numbers that jump up to 11.4, 36.4, and 4.4 when only looking at games where he played 20 or more minutes according to Statmuse.

Lee is also a pretty good defender who, at 6-foot-5, could be deployed in the same matchups Doc Rivers used Danny Green in from 2020-22. Now granted, Lee isn’t as good defensively as DG, but he does have a positive Defensive RAPTOR rating in all but one of his professional seasons, so he isn’t “bad” either.

And hey, speaking of Rivers, did you know that Lee is married to Seth Curry’s sister who, in turn, is married to Doc Rivers’ daughter Callie? That practically makes them family too, right? Or at least fixtures of the same family functions. With Seth gone, why not sign another member of the extended Curry-Rivers family tree, especially on a veteran minimum contract? That would at least afford the 29-year-old a chance you break the rotation, which probably isn’t happening in Golden State.

Do the Philadelphia 76ers need another small wing? No, not really; what they do need is a point guard who can play 10 minutes per game and a bigger wing who can average three times that many minutes per game, but hey, you can’t control which cans are dented when you go to the grocery store. Unless Damion Lee gets a part of an MLE elsewhere, he should be available on a veteran minimum deal and thus should be on Daryl Morey’s big board.