Not sure why. He's good enough that they might be a 8th seed 1st round fodder. I'd take the best place to start and win.
He is getting paid nearly 50 mill over the next 5 years. But that is only becsuse he suffered the ignomy of being waived as a max guy. Reviving his career looks like accomplishing something in the playoffs, NOT putting up stats and missing the playoffs. PHX wont make 8 seed with him. They have had easiest SOS in the NBA, and are 9th. OKC are about to pass them, and the road becomes harder for PHX. Revive a career by starting on a contender and posting 8 boards 4 assists 2 steals and 2 blocks. Surely there would be 10-15ppg to go along with that? Would highlight him as a borderline all star agaim wouldnt it?
So exactly what time did the waivers clock start ticking? Or have they even officially waived him yet?
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Josh Smith clears waivers Wednesday at 5 PM ET and Philadelphia -- only team that has cap space to claim him -- has no plans to claim him</p>— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) <a href="https://twitter.com/ESPNSteinLine/status/547630936582791168">December 24, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Latest Josh Smith rumble: Houston, I'm told, is assuring Smith that he'll have a starting spot, which only makes Rockets more of a favorite</p>— Marc Stein (@ESPNSteinLine) <a href="https://twitter.com/ESPNSteinLine/status/547630419215388672">December 24, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I am a Pistons fan and... did he play brilliant against Memphis? 21 points on 21 shots (meaning he wasn't very efficient, but still took a ton of shots while the good offensive players on the Rockets didn't get theirs). Yeah, he had 3 assists but he also had 2 turnovers. He will have games where he plays good (I think pretty much everyone agrees he is very talented), but there will always be things that aren't quite good even in those. That is the curse of Josh Smith. He plays very stupid always, but his talent shows through and breeds hope.
Smith won us that game. There was only two or 3 bad shots. The rest were off cuts, fast breaks etc. At least 3 shots were missed because he was fouled and those would normally wouldn't not have counted against his fg%. He was operating in flow offense...played great def, and had game winning rebounding for us
