I think losing Josh Smith is a GOOD thing for this team

Oh thanks, I feel a lot better now

 

we shall see

 

My only problem with losing Smith was the lack of playmaking we would have.

The bench has no one who can pass the ball efficiently. It's a very big problem since the Warriors have now changed the way defenses play. You have to have great passing to break down a switching defense

 

I agree for the most part. When he got hot, he was awesome, but it wasn't that often that he got hot. I also believe he won't be very good with the Clippers. I think they are going to try and use him on the wing some, which is a recipe for disaster. I'm predicting that he will be closer to the Detroit Smith rather than the Rockets Smith.

 

Gonna miss the Smith to Howard lobs...

 

That 4-5 pick and roll was deadly, and that is what I will miss the most. Hopefully TJ and DMo were taking notes.

 

From a total roster standpoint, we replaced his playmaking ability with a better playmaker (Lawson) and his shooting/jacking up shots ability with a better shooter and scorer (Thornton).

Suffice to say I don't think we'll miss anything that he brought to the table.

 

Yeah!! Screw one of the reasons houston even survived the 2nd round!!! I'd rather have Lawson and Smith together but... whatever, maybe clips trade him for cheap or cut him, haha (I mean if they use him as a wing). I won't miss the free throws but I will miss the magic of round 2.

 

We lived by the J Smoove, and died by the J Smoove. When he was on, he kept us alive. When he was off, he wrecked us.

We lost a guy that gave you 2.6 assists along with 2.4 turnovers. That's not even counting all the virtual turnovers when opponents went Hack-a-Josh.

We gained a guy that last year averaged 9.6 asssists with 2.5 turnovers...which last year was 2nd in ast/to only behind Chris Paul.

There is a reason you only saw that Phoenix Suns / AAU Elbow Get in the Mavericks Series. Clips & Dubs nipped that in the bud. The Elbow Get got gone. It was 1 game you saw lob domination.

Lawson on the other hand will give you 10 times the lobs you could ever imagine out of Josh. Everyone is going to be getting up on sweet Lawson lobs, especially Dwight. Manimal can thank Lawson for a big portion of his rise. Same as what Paul did to Tyson Chandler in the NOLA days, but I digress.

Smith is a chucker who shouldn't chuck. His chucking has been replaced by Thornton, who is a chucker who shouold chuck.

We love what you did for us last year J Smoove, but OP's assessment is gnat's ass on.

 

We'll have to see how it plays out. Smith reminded me a lot of Mad Max(on the court, that is). He could be brilliant one night, and absolutely dreadful the next. He was incredibly clutch, but he was also a chucker(in fairness, he did have a greenlight from McHale) who was prone to taking a lot of bad shots.

In a way, I hope the parallels to Mad Max continue into next season. Maxwell was instrumental in winning the Rockets' first title and basically brought the team back from the brink in Game 3 at Phoenix much like Smith was a big factor in helping the Rockets to the WCF and saved their season(along with Brewer) in Game 6 at the Clippers.

But the following year after the acquisition of Drexler, Maxwell became somewhat redundant and wound up being a distraction. The team actually became a more cohesive and efficient unit once he left. Flashfoward to today with D-Mo returning, T-Jones being healthier(knock on wood), Harrell getting drafted, and the trade for Lawson giving the Rockets their long-coveted 2nd playmaker, and maybe we have a similar situation where Smith's presence would've done more harm than good. Especially in a contract year where he'd be looking to put up big numbers in order to secure one final big payday before his skills start to decline.

 

Although Josh was big in the 1st and 2nd rounds, I have to think that Lawson + healthy DMo are preferable to Josh Smith, in terms of impact.

Edit: Not saying losing Smith is "good", but I don't think it will have a huge net impact based on the other pieces we have.

 

Josh's real contribution was as a defensive big. He had quite a few impact blocks in the playoffs, which is something we didn't replace, although Capella could get better at it.

 

Smith was incredible in Game 6 and I will always cherish the memory of that comeback(hell, I still rewatch it almost every day on YouTube). But we also have to remember that he(along with Brewer to be fair) was absolutely horrible in Games 1-4 of that series.

And in the WCF, he was a disaster aside from Game 4. In fact, he arguably cost the Rockets at least one game in that series and I don't even mean his collision with Dwight(although that obviously didn't help). He put up something like 17 shots in Game 2 and only hit a few of them and we wound up losing by a single point. Imagine if Harden or any other player for that matter had put up even as few as 4 or 5 of Smith's attempts that night. We probably come home tied 1-1 and who knows what happens then.

The thing with Smith is he was an overall positive asset to this team last year, particularly given all the injuries. And especially when you consider how the Rockets essentially got him for free. But there's a lot of bad you have to take with the good in his game. If you're the Clippers and you have no bench to speak of and Smith is available for almost nothing, of course you leap at the chance to sign him. But if you're the Rockets and you're 3 deep at PF and you just landed a damn good PG and 2nd playmaker in Ty Lawson, why accept all those bad aspects of Smith's game? Why not have other players on the roster replace all the good stuff he did(defense, 3-pointers, blocked shots, ballhandling and passing) while eliminating the bad(sub-50% free throw shooting, bad shot selection, turnovers) completely?

 

I don't know the numbers but from what I remember Smith played incredible defense on Blake Griffin, I hope we don't miss that as much as it feels like we will.

 

Did he really though? Even in the infamous Game 6, Griffin was destroying the Rockets through 3 quarters before the team shut down every Clipper at the offensive end of the floor in the final 14 1/2 minutes. And I still maintain that had way more to do with LA just being exhausted after playing their starters most of the way.

I'm not saying Smith wasn't better than T-Jones on defense. But what he did wasn't irreplacable. I think D-Mo is more than capable of doing as good a job(assuming his back is ok). And unlike Smith, he's a reliable offensive threat at the other end of the floor, especially at the foul line.

 

Josh saw the writing on the wall...very few minutes for him on this Rockets roster unless we have a serious injury.

I loved his athleticism but won't miss the dumb turnovers. We are much better off with a healthy DMo getting the important minutes.

Could be another case of addition by subtraction.

 

SMH...I distinctly remember Blake Griffin absolutely abusing and embarrassing Smith again and again whenever he wanted to however he wanted to.

 

I don't. I could see an argument that his departure won't hurt us, but I don't see an argument that his departure helps us.