Foolish of Morey to not offer some of the MLE. You can't even argue Houston is taking a step backwards while everyone else has improved.
Now we lack a starting point guard and power forward depth (considering DMo is healthy, BIGGEST IF for our offseason right now)
Well, ****, accidentally submitted my post prematurely lol. I was saying Smith was so important BECAUSE of the injuries to TJones and DMo in the playoffs. In reply to oakdogg, Smith had some stretches where he wouldn't even try defensively even in the playoffs, just no effort whatsoever. I didn't think he was good defensively at all. We still needed another perimeter creator even if Smith stayed. Smith's inconsistencies really hurt us in the playoffs, I'm not surprised Morey didn't value him that high.
With all the talk about "defined role," maybe Rockets weren't as set on moving TJ as everyone chose to believe. If they were, Josh's role couldn't possibly have been more defined. If not, I could see where there might be uncertainty.
Cyberx reported that the Rockets were moving on from Josh Smith in the off-season. This was while the Rockets were still in the playoffs. Not surprising.
Morey got lucky though. Smith fell into his lap. No one expected Detroit to just cut him. I'll give him credit for Brewer, but the Pistons basically handed us Smith. Maybe he can fill out our bench through trades the rest of this summer and up until the trade deadline next season, but he's put this team in a big hole. They have one playmaker on the roster, no true PG, no backup for Bev, and more than likely can no longer move Terrence Jones in any deal.
Josh Smith is not a game changer. Sucks that he left, wish we kept him, but he's not the difference between a GSW series win/loss. Its not shocking he's gone considering how little he can make here money-wise, what is shocking though is he left for less money than we could have given him... Either way TJones just became a keeper and the Clippers might just be favorites this season. Until the trade deadline passes I'm not concerned. Still a lot we can do to improve the team. Josh leaving makes us more consistent, maybe we don't have the crazy stupid highs, but at least we don't suffer the lows either.
He has to right? I don't really see a reason not to use part of the MLE on Smith if you don't have other plans for it.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Smith agreed to a 1 year deal for vet min. of $1.5 million, per source.</p>— Brad Turner (@BA_Turner) <a href="https://twitter.com/BA_Turner/status/621795596253310976">July 16, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
