The guy we should trade for if we acquire Dwight is the guy that Minnesota likes. Whoever that is, I don't know. But I have a feeling that Morey knows. We want the asset that can be turned into KLove. Josh Smith is a terrible midrange jump shooter. But really guys, think about it and quit arguing over it. Do you really think Smith is going to be launching a huge pile of midrange jumpers playing next to Harden/Howard/Lin/Parsons? FACT 1: Smith shot 474 midrange jumpers in 2683 minutes of play. That is a midrange jumper every 5.66 minutes he was on the floor. Omer, PPat, Mook Morris, DMo, TJones, Greg Smith, Cole Aldrich, Thomas Robinson...combined shot 674 midrange jumpers in a total of 9131 minutes played. That is a midrange jumper every 13.54 minutes!!! From the whole group!!!! Remember to make this fair you would really need to add in all the midrange jumpers from Al Horford and take out all the midrange jumpers from before the TRob/PPat trade. I didn't do that for the sake of simplicity. FACT 2: 38.3% of Josh Smith's shots are from midrange. Only 20.3% of our entire team's shots came from midrange. (And that number was skewed by the amount of midrange shots PPat took before he was traded.) Fact 3: Josh Smith took 18% of his team's shots and used 18% of his team's possessions. James Harden took 19.7% of his team's shots and used 21% of his team's possessions. And realistically, most of us feel that Harden was overused. Do you really think Smith is going to be launching a huge pile of midrange jumpers playing next to Harden/Howard/Lin/Parsons?
No. My fear is that he will launch up a huge pile of ill advised 3's. His shot selection is questionable to put it nicely.
He would shot a lot of threes. The Rockets run a lot of pick and roll. The way a lot of teams defeated it was by having the PF sag into the middle. Smith would have a lot of uncontested three attempts. I expect his uncontested vs. contested three point percentage would increase. I don't know how much it would increase as basketball is very dynamic. It really depends on how the defense chooses to defend the Rockets PnR if they had Smith. If the Rockets get Smith to agree to come to Houston, I think the Rockets try hard to work out a sign and trade to keep some salary flexibility.
Basketballholic's stats (thanks, man) makes one wonder if Morey actually has an interest in Smith. My guess is that it's predicated more on whether he believes Smith would definitely get him Howard. I'm not sure it would make a difference, but who knows? Both Howard and Smith have maturity issues, so perhaps it would. How would we afford Howard, Harden, Smith, and still have a viable group to make up the rest of the team? One thing it tells me is that, at least for next season, Parsons would be untouchable. Too good a player at a tremendous value... just what you would need on a salary strapped team, which is what we would become.
Do you think Oden would like to backup Asik? http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/nba/rumors/ Thomas: Oden looks unbelievable May, 17, 2013 6:30 AM By Nick Borges | ESPN.com Greg Oden plans to make a comeback and one of his workout partners says the oft-injured center looks good. "Man, he looks unbelievable," Ohio State forward Deshaun Thomas told The News-Herald. "He's running. He's lifting weights. You might be seeing a comeback. He looks like he's ready to go. He's running, getting in shape. I'll tell you one thing. For a big 7-footer that's all he does, running and getting in shape. He's looking right." Oden's career has been ravaged by five microfracture knee surgeries and he will try to play next season. He played in just 82 games over four years while battling the knee issues. The Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat have been mentioned as the favorites to sign Oden some time in the summer once he's been cleared by his medical team.
Man, I stop by clutchfans to see what's new. And yet, people still talk about the same *****? Come on now clutchfans, you're better than this. I want to read new threads and new interesting stuff. Not Dwight Howard, not the same ***** over and over again.
Right so during the off season and weeks before free agency.....hmm what should we talk about?? Oh the plethora.....please pick a topic of genuine interest that no one else has thought of....
He would be shooting the corner 3 ball. So, he'd have to practice it and learn to let it fly instead of aiming it, which is what he constantly does on his jumper. But if you think he's going to be taking a pile of ill-advised anything, you're sadly mistaken on the power of this organization, on the authority of the coaching staff and front office. Josh Smith won't come here without knowing his role and how he is going to be used. He'll have to commit to it first and foremost. Because if he doesn't co-operate in the system, he's gonna be sitting and then traded as soon as possible. The only way he comes and here and stays is by working within the system, playing defense, getting out on the break, finishing (he's probably the next best finisher in the league behind Lebron), running pick and roll, then drifting out to the corner and taking 3-point shots in rhythm. The biggest impact Smith would have here is defending at a high level and igniting our fast break. That is where he excels big time. The next biggest impact Smith would have would be finishing at the rim. He's the best finisher in the NBA not named Lebron James. The next biggest impact Smith would have would be working behind Howard in the middle when Howard goes to the bench. Smith would be the defacto backup center in our small ball lineups, patrolling the middle, while we play small with a shooter at the 4. The fact of the matter is Josh Smith is going to look a whole lot better running as the 4th to 5th offensive option behind Harden, Dwight, Lin, Parsons, etc. If we bring in Howard and then after that we trade for Smith, it will be with this understanding. Smith will know up front what his role will be here and agree to it OR he won't come here. And he'll understand that if he backpedals on his agreed to role after he gets here that we will trade him. It's just that simple. At this time, I am neither for or against obtaining Josh Smith if we sign Dwight. Personally I think the next deal will fall in our laps one way or the other. I trust Morey will either keep Asik or will max the value we get for him when/if we trade him. Personally I believe that Kevin Love is the best front court match for Dwight and Harden walking on planet earth. I suspect that Morey will go to Minny with an offer if we sign Howard, offering up Asik and some of our power forwards to see if Minny will engage. And then the deal will unfold right there or it won't. If it doesn't Morey is going to probe, he's going to talk with Smith's camp, talk with Millsap's camp, there'll be all sorts of rumors fly but the only way he executes a trade for one of those guys or for any other starting rotation type power forward, it will be an opportunistic move that brings back more value and keeps us in a position to trade for Love in the next year if he become available. This could very well include trading Asik for Smith. Or it could involve something unforseen at this time, something crazy, like combining White, TJones, Smith, Anderson, and Ohlbrecht in a trade for....Ilyasova....or possibly those same guys for a re-signed Paul Millsap for 4 years - $37.5 million.....or a myriad of other options.
Josh Smith is an enigma. There are things he can't do well that he is asked to do (or maybe does on his own unwisely). But would we need him to do those things? Morey is pretty good at finding players who are being misused or underused and getting more out of them. But Morey said he has a very short list of 2nd superstar to acquire. If he can't get that player this summer, he will just sign one year deals and try again next year. So the only way we get Smith is if a) he is on Morey's short list of superstars or b) we get a superstar first and acquire Smith after
I have a hard time seeing the Rockets trading that many of the sub-million guys. To balance having 2 or 3 stars, the Rockets need good cheap players to avoid getting into or at least not deep into the luxury tax. While these guys may not be game changers, the Rockets need guys that can play off the bench.
I do not know. I do not know if Morey would have interest in Josh Smith after he signs Dwight. That gets into how much he values the addition of Smith's defense and different style offense playing next to Dwight over Asik or over other acquisition opportunities that may exist after Dwight. I personally that Paul Millsap makes more sense than Smith does next to Dwight. But I can't pretend to have a clue on what Morey's thought process is with Dwight aboard. Will be interesting to see what happens. I guess my doubts about Smith come from understanding that we would likely be paying him $12 million per season (possibly more) to be a 4th or 5th offensive option while being a defensive sidekick to Dwight. This probably goes back to me not having enough understanding on how to quantify defense and the effect of a defensive player. I can visualize it. I can visualize a devastating defensive front line with Howard/Smith. I can visualize lots of runouts, lots of dunks, etc. But I can't quantify it in regards to transition vs. half-court. Fundamentally, I believe that offense overrides defense in the NBA and that half-court play dominates championships over transition play. It's an offensive league. While defense is important and you can't win a championship without it, I don't believe you can win a championship without a very efficient half-court offense. Transition offense is one thing. But championships are won when teams can come down and set up half-court and EXECUTE their play and get a lot of points out of it consistently possession after possession. So, if I'm building a championship team, I'm looking to build a unit that can execute offensively in half-court at an insane level and can still finish run outs when they happen. Because championships most often come down to key half-court possession moments. In my opinion, it is easier and much more common for championship teams to take highly-skilled offensive players that may lack individually on the defensive end and teach and motivate them to play defense effectively together as a unit then it is to take highly skilled defensive players with individual offensive challenges and mold them into a highly effective offensive unit. Because of my bias, I tend to look at guys like Paul Millsap and value them over guys like Josh Smith. Millsap is a highly effective defender, although not on Josh Smith's level. However, Millsap in my opinion, plays a much more cerebral game on both ends of the floor. With a paint defender like Howard, I would much rather prefer to have a smart defender like Millsap on the floor who may not be as big or as athletic as others but his iq is superior to them than to have a crazy athlete like Josh Smith on the floor who will make sensational plays from time to time but has a tendency to have brain farts. Brain farts in clutch time turn potential championship teams into second-place finishers. Millsap, in my opinion, is also a more efficient, higher iq offensive option by far than Josh Smith, and that difference is emphasized in the half-court. So, that's my bias just based on watching a lot of basketball. I admit I am weak on being able to quantify individual players' defensive impact on winning. Even after perusing over defensive advanced stats. I understand the basis for the stats but I can't see in my mind how players fit together defensively and how that would impact the overall team's performance. I can do that a whole lot better offensively. In Paul Millsap's case, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that a healthy Paul Millsap playing the 4 alongside Dwight would turn this team into a half-court offensive juggernaut. I've watched him play, analyzed him, he's a super smart player, he knows how to space the floor, knows how to run pick and roll or pick and pop, the guy just knows how to play. And he has executed at a very efficient level in different systems in Utah, systems that went away from him and weren't designed to maximize his strengths. What I don't know is would Millsap playing alongside Howard make our defense a top 10 defense. I know Millsap has great defensive instinct. I know he's a good defender by watching him. But I just can't quantify the defensive synergy created by meshing him and Howard with our perimeter guys like I can the offensive synergy.
If Smith coming here is predicated on what Dwight say I would think Dwight would be asking for Chris Paul with him instead of Josh Smith.
Generally speaking, the top free agents are the first people to announce, because the teams won't do anything until they're off the table. And I think he'd still be inclined to meet with all the suitors regardless, of whether he's inclined one way or another (much like Lebron met the 5 teams, even though it seemed the Miami choice was pretty much 99% in his head before it all started, if I remember, he announced something like 8 days after free agency started, and prior to any time signings could be done)
I can absolutely assure you that Spooner is on the level. I know him very well. Don't worry about him saying too much. There is no way DM could put together the OP's identity from what Spooner said. The whole point he was trying to make was simply that the OP is a legit guy.
I don't think there is an endless supply of good players that Morey can sign cheap. It will be very difficult to find another Beverley as it was to get Parsons. Once the Rockets get their stars set, chemistry becomes more important and the Rockets will have less roster spots for Morey to play with. I wonder if the Rockets set a record for most players this season under contract at some point from July 1- June 30th.
