And if he ****s up we can trade him after the season or simply cut him outright. It is a shame SVG didn't pull the cord on him 72 hours earlier then he would have been eligible to be traded at the deadline if needed but still he's an asset at that cap number no questions asked.
Josh Smith isn't as good of a defender as D-Mo is at this point in his career. People need to actually go look at the numbers. Smith is a shell of his former self. And you're right that people here are just looking at the name and ignoring that it's not 07-10 when Smith was actually a good (still inefficient) player. Some players just decline hard and fast once they get into their late 20's if they have not learned how to transform their game. It happened to Gerald Wallace (as Simmons mentioned) Steve Francis, Bonzi Wells, Elton Brand, hell it has happened to Rajon Rondo, but people are too slow to realize it. Smith is bad. I trust Morey knows what he's doing. But anyone who is acting like there is no downside whatsoever to this move is either naive or ignorant.
Typical low risk high reward. Must do if available. This move is reminiscent of Rasheed to Pistons imo. Look how that turned out.
It is clutchfans. Some dudes here are against signing lebron james and dwight howard before we got him.
Shawn Kemp is another good example. When you have super athletic players that derive nearly 100% of their value from athleticism, they don't age well unless they learn old man skills like shooting. Kemp was a hell of a lot better than Josh Smith ever thought about being and he was essentially done at 29 or 30. I think some people are just blinded by the fact that he's going to be a Rocket so they want to see this in the most positive light possible.
I'm not sure how anyone can look at that Detroit team and come to this sort of conclusion. Drummond's fg% is down nearly 15%, is he declining? That team is awful, their offensive and defensive systems are awful, they're just really really bad. Stan has no idea how to work with a team with awful spacing, and Detroit's is all time bad.
Look, I'm not going to sit here and pretend to know more than the GM. If Morey thinks he's worthwhile we will get him. And that looks to be the case. All I am saying is there is a chance for this to turn out to be a bad move. If it works out it'll be amazing. At this point in the season I'm not a fan of taking a risk like this. People are acting like there is zero potential downside, but a risky move has downside no matter how hard anyone wants to pretend towards the contrary. All the "we'll just cut him!" and "we can just stick him at the end of the bench!" talk is just loony. Teams don't just outright cut a guy (except for the dumbass Pistons right now) and nothing about Josh Smith screams classy basketball player. So burying him at the end of the bench would work out terribly. We shall see though. I still think there's more infatuation with the name than there is with anything he has done lately. Also, at the end of the day, credit to Morey again. The biggest reason we are in the lead to sign this guy is due to that dreaded flexibility that our fan base loves to hate on so much. As if being able to take the most money from a contender is not (most likely) the most important thing to a guy like Smith.
It's been talked about at length. Feel free to read this thread to find out. I'm not gonna rehash points that multiple posters have made ad nauseum.
The downside would be if he ends up being actively detrimental to the offense here like he was in Detroit and Atlanta before that or if he is benched for playing terrible and he gets in Dwight's ear and causes locker room problems. When you are dealing with a close friend of one of your team's biggest stars, there could be big problems. Chemistry matters. Locker room mentality matters. That said, there's always a chance that he can turn the calender back like 4 years and be a good player again, if that happens, it's a big win. If he even manages to just not be actively detrimental to the offense and regains his former insane level of defense then it would be a win. I just don't know how likely it is.
That's a convenient way not to answer the questions but ok. I'll just assume that your thoughts are exactly the same as everyone that is against it if that's what you are saying.
What risk? Letting go of Black or Dorsey? You wouldn't give up either of those two for Josh Smith at $2 million/year? If Smith pans out, that's even more pieces you can trade to address the need for another playmaker if you wanted to. Or you can roll with the current team with much better depth in the front court. If he doesn't pan out, then you pissed off people who purchased (and likely paid extra to personalize) a Tarick Black or Joey Dorsey jerseys for nothing.
Good suggestion, let's look at his numbers. Smith's defensive rating this season is better than anyone on the Rockets. In fact, Smith has the 15th best defensive rating in the entire NBA this season. Did you look at the numbers?
I've had multiple posts in this thread that state my position. Not gonna do it on every page because that's just spam. Bobby has been stating the gist of it for the entire thread anyway. Everyone is just piling on him and DaDakota because they feel the need to defend Smith since it's a big deal anytime Houston gets a "big name" player and they're thirsty for that "move that puts us over the top" This move isn't that. The Rockets need a huge PG upgrade. Not some has been who is bffl's with Dwight to replace our PF who is the 4th best rim protector in the NBA today.
I wouldn't be worried about the offense part because if he sucks you can always just cut him at his price. The Dwight thing is a possibility but I'd be surprised if he blew his last few years of his prime because the team benched his friend. Dwight seems to have a lot of respect for Morey and McHale so I personally wouldn't be worried but stranger things have happened. There is almost never a zero downside move to be made but I think the Smith signing is on the lower end.
Depth at PF and C is currently a much bigger need than a huge upgrade at PG. Signing Smith does not mean letting go of DMo.
Smith is a player that the rockets have been chasing for a while and makes a lot of sense in a system that gets guys to buy into not taking jumpers. He isn't just a random aging big name. Him getting in Howard's head and running the team is a bit of a stretch when it comes to downside but anything is possible.
