David Lee is unhappy with his minutes

The David Lee rumors are starting to heat up as word has come out that the veteran PF is not happy with the lack of playing time that he's receiving. Via Chris Forsberg of ESPN.com:

"Coach [Brad Stevens] came to me and said we’re going to try and go small at the 4, which means [more playing time for] Kelly and Jonas," Lee said. "That’s why Sully has been out of the starting lineup. That was his theory on some changes he wanted to make after us losing a couple of games, so I told him while I disagree with it, I also told him he’s the coach and can choose to do that."

"I can either choose to be pissed off or I can choose to keep working hard, and I’m going to keep working hard," Lee said.

Lee also chimed in on possibly requesting a trade:

Lee said that he hasn't pondered a trade request quite yet.

"We'll see moving forward how permanent this is," Lee said. "Obviously, I’m very confident I can help a team win. I hope that’s the Boston Celtics. So, no, I haven’t spoken about that. I haven’t really thought about that yet. Right now it’s about continuing to be ready, and if that was talked about it would be between my agent, the Celtics and other teams."

Before the season, we all knew that one or two of the big men in the rotation would be unhappy with their minutes due to the log jam at PF and C. Unfortunately for David Lee, it seems as if he's the odd man out of the rotation. In Wednesday's loss to Detroit, Lee logged in his second consecutive DNP. Analytics put David Lee's numbers this year at being easily the worst of his career.

While I do not think David Lee is a bad player at all, I just don't see him fitting in at this point with the Celtics electing to go with Jerebko, Olynyk, Johnson, and Sully as their main guys with Zeller getting sporadic minutes here and there. It seems more and more inevitable that Lee will be gone once the February Trade Deadline comes around. There's too many cooks in the kitchen at the PF/C position and one of them needs to go and for David Lee, the writing is on the wall.

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