The worst shooting season in the history of the NBA/ABA

Context matters.

He was playing the wrong position.

He was much better in Atlanta as a PF. Hence the big contract.

No only that. He still managed to be a good player with his amazing defense.

 

The only set of free throws he shot for the entire game were off an offensive rebound, so they were basically free points, I'm not particularly worried about his ts as much as his ppp, on top of that, it's not such a bad thing that he doesn't get fouled, refs tend to eat their whistle when fouls are happening all the time (if you threw together a team of dwight, harden, durant, griffin and lowry, the refs would swallow their whistle on all but the most egregious fouls), and it seems this year by surrounding dwight and james with guys who rarely get fouled, the refs seem to have a tendency to call everything on james because basically no one else except the usual hug a dwight is getting fouled.

Also it was Memphis, they're not exactly a team known for giving up high shooting percentages.

 

There was no need to appease Dwight Howard. And the $2 million he's being paid is only low-risk if they are willing to release him if he sucks.

And if they release him, they run the risk of pissing off Dwight Howard.

So money-wise it's low risk. But chemistry-wise, it's more risky.

 

I suspect the Smith signing by Murray was done for one reason, primarily: 1) Darrell's not an idiot.

People are overthinking this. $2m for an elite defensive player who is a good offensive player when he plays at PF.

Ok, he's not super-efficient. Well, neither is DMo. So what? We're talking about our 3rd scorer here.

 

He only took 4 bad shots out of 21 and he won us this game? Get a rope.

 

Josh Smith had a good game against Memphis. He played pretty good defense, grabbed some rebounds, made some good passes and scored when needed. Granted, it was done with Zach Randolph being out, but still- without his production we would have lost that game.

My only concern/criticism of his game was at the end of the game. While watching it, there were a couple of drives when I thought "Ok, now is usually the time when Harden takes over", but instead Harden passed to Josh Smith who then drove or forced up 2-3 shots in a row. Did anyone else catch that? Those were shots I would much rather have Harden taking. I understand that Randolph was out and Smith had Vince Carter on him instead of Tony Allen, but I would still rather have Harden take them.

But overall a minor complaint for a very good game for the new look Rockets.

 

Season's not over yet.

Why don't you filter it by 25 game stretches and see what you come up with.

 

Josh Smith is going to have some 4 for 21 games in the future and the Rockets are going to lose some of those games. That's part of the package. The sooner we make our peace with that fact, the easier it will go down when it happens.

 

OK we'll see.

25 games is not that large of a sample size.

 

wtf why do u hate Josh Smith's guts so bad??

 

OP is the only poster on Clutchfans to be a member since Oct 2012 with less than 800 posts and 2 rep bars. Of course you know I made that all up. The point is -- don't you see cherry picking can be fun, easy and counter-productive!!!!

 

I'm not really looking at Josh Smith as having to be our third scorer. I just want him to put up a much less womanly attempt at guarding LMA than TJones gave in the playoffs, and I will be happy.

 

You could look at it from that perspective, or you could look at his career averages and know he's due for a string of 9 for 13 type stat lines. Regression to the mean.

We have a legitimate shot to win our first championship in 20 years and you're going to look for the negative?

 

The only stat I care about is wins. Josh Smith's playmaking, defense, passing and rebounding make the Rockets a monumentally better team than they were a few days ago (and at 2 million he is the steal of the season). He'll settle in and not take 21 shots every game, but as many have pointed out most were good shots that just didn't fall.

Plain and simple, with Dwight struggling with fouls and Gasol, Smith came in and gave us the strong interior presence that we needed to win the game. If OP would have watched even a little bit rather than just reading the box score, this thread would have never been created.

 

How many of those guys were playing out of position AND being asked to be the primary scorer while having two other guys clogging the paint where said player is at his best??

Of the 4 shots that were "bad" one was a corner three in the flow of the offense with the shot clock winding down, one was a buzzer beater attempt to end Q1, and he hit one of the other two.

He was 9/21 and was easily fouled on two of those misses late but got no call. So he should have been 9/19 with 4 more FT attempts...

Lets check his TS% as a Rocket and see the difference. I don't give a crap about what he did in Detroit with two other guys killing the spacing down low.

 

Did you notice how without any time to practice with our team, he helped anchor our 2nd unit. So, when the starters came out he helped to keep us in the game and stay competitive. Something we have sorely lacked thus far. Did you also notice how open he was to his teammates in asking for advice on the floor on how to play trying to keep the team ball moving smoovely.

I rest my case. No more questions.

 

37% of his shots in Detroit were jumpers this season. 51% of his shots last season were jumpers. He won't be shooting that many jump shots here, so his numbers in Detroit don't mean a damn thing when it comes to what he does as a Rocket.

 

This!!!! The guy came here for peanuts! Had and amazing debut... We beat one of the best teams in their floor (yes without ZBO). Like come on, if you don't like the Rockets go root for someone else