This team with Josh Smith?

He's a much better defender than Jones obviously. But he's just as bad a shooter and the problem is he just goes out there and rips it. At least Jones knows he's a crappy shooter and will sit if he fires up a bunch of bricks.

Any team that has Josh Smith on their roster has to figure out how to severely limit his jump shot attempts while still running an effective, efficient offense. I don't know how you do that when the dude is owed over $40 million guaranteed. I wouldn't want the headache.

 

He was benched by freaking Detroit last year. You should have backspaced before submitting this thread.

 

Didn't Josh Smith have his last horrific statistical year the last time a team tried to play him at SF?

Josh Smith in Detroit at the SF was NEVER going to work especially when you had two other bigs who dominated the paint area. It forces Smith into a jump shooter which is his obvious weakness.

Josh Smith as a PF is a very, very good borderline All-Star player. However, he doesn't really give you anything Jones doesn't do now from a skill set standpoint, he just does it better. If you replace Jones with Josh Smith I dont know how that weapon really gives you anything more than duplication. It would be sort of like upgrading from Omer to Dwight, or Lin to Harden. An upgrade of the same type of player, or as Clutch himself says... a misused allocation of funds.

My point being, the Rockets dont need to upgrade the tools they already have, they need to add different types of tools to handle different types of jobs.

 

Josh Smith is not a desirable asset to trade to a team that is forced into trading their superstar power forward who is on an expiring contract or face him walking away from them for nothing.

 

You do realize he would be a 4th option behind harden howard and parsons. He could be a good fit just very expensive for a 4th option. The other problem is his trade value is terrible so it would be hard to flip him. If your idea is to get him and then trade him later for love so Minnesota keeps a relevant pf that could be possible. Minnesota is in a bad situation so I'm pretty sure they will take a big name because no one really wants to go there.

 

If you acquire any player on that type of contract (unless he's an expiring) you are bringing him in thinking that he's the missing piece.

There is a reason why that team was trying to trade that player & contract in the first place. If you go into it thinking its a flip you could be really shooting yourself in the foot. Anyone suggesting the Rockets would be acquiring Smith to have an "asset" to send Minnesota in a later Love deal really is pulling that out of their arse.

If Minnesota wanted Josh Smith and his contract they probably could have already had him, or could get him at any point regardless of what Kevin Love does.

 

No they wouldn't. Flip is too smart for that. He's not going to be stuck for 2 1/2 seasons while Josh Smith just takes up cap space and plays like crapola in hopes of getting traded out of there.

If Flip trades Love, it will be for a legit superstar that Flip can count on to lead his franchise alongside Rubio, or it will be for the best pile of expriings/picks/rookie contracts that he can get.

 

Good points. If he's not an asset then just hypothetically if we had him at the 4 this year do you think we would have beaten Portland?

 

I would take him. Detroit were idiots for putting him as an SF.

 

Lets be realistic about what we can get this offseason with the assets we own. Lin is going to have to be moved if we want to make any move larger than using the salary exceptions (MLE, BLE). Lin with his balloon payment is going to cost us attentional assets to move, likely our first round pick this year and likely more, a future second and maybe a player like DMoe thrown in there too. Plus we will will have to dump Asik for just cap space and maybe getting back a small asset like a future highly protected first round pick. That is the only way we will even have the cap space to have a competitive offer for someone like Melo or Bosh if he turns down his ETO.

So if we don't get the sense that Melo is willing to come for whatever salary space we could possible make available for him, then I think adding Josh Smith is not the worst ideas in the world considering what we could get him for and what the team would like with him versus gutting it to get the 3rd star.

Lets say all it would cost us is Lin and Garcia to obtain Smith. Det does this just to clear Smith off the books and start over. This works with the 150% salary matching for teams under the luxury tax. This would allow us to keep Asik and still have the MLE and BLE to help build the team with. Smith is one of the best Defensive players in the game today still, and yes his offensive efficiency numbers are not good. However if you decrease his FGA, which would have to happen with him being the likely 3 or 4 offensive option in most lineups, then the net result is positive since the defensive impact outweighs his offensive inefficiency. His good friend Dwight would have to have a good impact on him, and having Hakeem to work with him could only help. His offensive efficiency would have to go up just by default playing next to players like Harden and Dwight. He has never played next to a player like either one of those guys before and was force to play beyond his capabilities with borderline crappy hawks teams and the mess that Detroit put together this year. He has never played with a team that has a go to scorer and his numbers suffer from that fact. I would never want Smith on my team if he was required/allowed to the offensive focal point he has been so far in his career. But would be a great third wheel if he buys into his role here, which I think he will now that he is getting paid very well and wants to be part of winning championships.

Then go all in and use the MLE to shore up our backcourt. I would love to see us go after Avery Bradley who just shot nearly 40% from 3 and plays some of the best defense out there. If it wasn't for his injury woes he would likely be a 7-8 million a year player. However if we can get him with the MLE then I think it would be worth the risk. IF he cannot be obtained then there are other PG options that could shore up the position like Greivis Vasquez.

Just imagine throwing Bradley and Bev at the best backcourt player and having Smith cover the Durants/Lebrons of the world. Then we still have Asik to back up Dwight and play in twin towers against some of the more physical PFs like Zach Randolph that might give Smith some trouble.

I think we would have the best combination of offense and defense in the league with plenty of depth since we get to keep Asik, DMoe, DJones, Parsons and our picks if we went down this avenue versus gutting it for a 3rd star like Melo. IF it doesn't work out then in 2015 we could attach some assets to Smith and move him for cap space then just like we would have to do with Lin this year.

 

I don't actually. Maybe he fairs slightly better defensively on LMA & Robin Lopez, but at the end of the day, making the switch to Asik & Howard on LMA was going to happen either way to get more size on him. Folks here think Kevin Love is the answer, but even Love would have issues defending LMA & Lopez in that series.

But in the end, I dont think that was even what lost the series. The Rockets just didn't defend well as a team, the Rox best player was taken out of the series for 5 of the 6 games, and they really lost their identity offensively. Josh Smith doesn't bring in anything that makes Harden, Parsons, Lin, the bench, and the coach grow into better/smarter players & pieces.

Then you add in the freak occurrences (Lin losing the ball), Lillard hitting the shot heard round the world, etc. and at the end of the day, upgrading Jones to Josh Smith doesn't really make that big of a difference.

 

Love would have trouble defending LaMarcus but Lamarcus would have more trouble defending Love.

 

not sure if you meant LOL and autocorrect changed it to LOF...

 

Who cares about variety? If you're getting efficient shots it really doesn't matter if it's the same shot over and over again. All three point shots aren't efficient shots...it depends on who's taking the shot.

Teams always knew the Lakers were going to throw the ball into Shaq and he'd attemp to dunk it. They couldn't stop it so it was an incredibly efficient shot. It really didn't matter that they knew what was coming or that they didn't have a great variety.

Your original quote of "Perfect Morey player. Doesn't like midrange or post, just chucks 3 pointers." caused Akkuron to reply "Your understanding of Morey's philosophy is about as accurate as your description of Smith's play-style. ". You then replied "Please enlighten me". That's what I was doing.

Your description of Smith's game was totally off. You said he doesn't like post ups but he posts up 18% of the time. You said that he doesn't like mid range yet 32.7% of his shots are mid-range. You said that he "just chucks 3 pointers" yet 78.5% of his shots are not 3 pointers.

As for the "perfect Morey player" quote, that's complely off too. Morey likes efficient players and Josh Smith isn't efficient. Smith takes a lot of inefficient shots so not only is he NOT the perfect Morey player, he's the anti-Morey player. If a bad 3 pt shooter is taking three pointers then it's not efficient.

I'd have to agree with Akkuron that your statements seem to imply that you're not familiar with Josh Smith's game nor Morey's philosophy.

As for Miami and GSW playing a fast pace...yes and no. Miami is #27 in the league in pace so no they don't play fast. GSW are #6 but they still play slower than the #5 Rockets who you previously said "plays slowed down iso ball". The Rockets play faster than all but 4 teams so I'm not sure where the description of them playing a slowed down iso game comes from.

 

Truth!

Lamarcus had no problem defending Asik. In fact, he got to snooze for half the game to save his energy for the offensive end. He shouldn't get that luxury.

If the Rockets had Kevin Love or Carmelo Anthony at PF, you can bet that would significantly hamper Aldridge's overall game, if for no other reason than to tire him out, or get him in foul trouble and on the bench.

 

J-Smoove would ruin our offense. He can't consistently hit the 3-ball, free throws, or a mid range J. His strengths are defense and fast break (finishing at the rim), nothing to break the bank for...

 

Sure. But the question originated from whether or not the Rockets would have won the series if Josh Smith would have been with the Rockets instead of Terrence Jones.

Then at that point, defensively I pointed out that even Love would have still had issues guarding LMA as well as Smith. I dont think ANYONE here said anything about Love not having a counter impact on the other end.

However, if the Rockets had Love, I would argue that they would probably have a completely different identity offensively by nature anyways so its hard to just sub Jones for Love and know the exact outcome. Subbing Jones for Smith and its a little more clear since they are such similar players with Smith being an upgraded version of Jones.

That being said, you look at the series as a whole, guarding LMA was only a portion of what went wrong for the Rockets. Like I said before, upgrading from Jones to Smith is sort of a misuse of the allocation of funds the Rockets have much like having Asik & Howard, and Lin & Harden on the same roster making big bucks.

If you are upgrading that position, you'd like to have a different set of tools to use (like what Melo, Love, Bosh, or even Millsap bring) to give yourself more ammunition to win a series like that. If you are not getting more ammunition from the upgrade in salary at the PF position, than you are better off spending your money elsewhere to improve other parts of the roster.


*FYI- BasketcaseHollic was really just trying to argue with nobody there to start another fight on the GARM. NOBODY was insinuating the Rockets wouldn't have hurt Portland on the other end had they had Love on their roster instead of Jones.

 

Yeah, I was only responding to that one post.

But to the original topic, I would say no, I do not think Josh Smith would have made much of a difference.

 

Detroit dangled him at the deadline, nobody threw any offers at them. There's a reason for that..