James Harden had a pretty damn good playoff run. He did have one horrible game, and a couple of others that definitely weren't good. But overall he was one of the best players of any team in the playoffs. Any player that looks at one game and ignores everything else and bases their decision on that is not the kind of player we want on the Rockets.
Josh Smith won us a game and he was a big part in losing those games in the WCF. The more I think of it.. The more I'm okay with his departure. We need guys that can shoot free throws.
LMAO. The first thing about high basketball IQ is to know your role and who you are. That is something that is usually achieved in the duration of someone's rookie contract. Unfortunately Josh Smith skipped that step and rarely found a shot he didn't like. Is he skilled as a good passer? yes. Skills =/= high basketball iq. Let's talk about turnovers and efficiency. or you don't know what this means and you only know raw stats and boxscore?
Smith was one of the main reasons why Rockets were down 1-3 to Clippers. PointZero is asking for a ban
He was important but not irreplaceable. If we get 4/5 with one elite talent we'll be fine. At the %'s he was shooting, there was nothing special about him but his defense and volatile playmaking.
You are right but that was 1 time, how many other times during the season, did Jason mess up? Yes he did great in 1 playoff series but that is all.
Bingo! At the moment: Kind of slow footed. Makes bone headed passes that are easily picked off. Shouldn't play the 3 due to being slow footed with age and can't possibly hang with elite 3s on defense. Is a streaky shooter and will randomly jack up 4 to 5 bricks from the three-range costing his team leads more often than not.
And how many unforced TURNOVERS to get those assists. I hate when people call someone a good passer when they are not over a 2-1 Assist to turnover ratio. Harden is not a good passer, he is an OK one....same for Jsmith and you can't have two high turnover guys initiating the offense. Won't win a chip that way. DD
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you missed the series. With Terrence Jones starting at PF the Rockets were getting blown out, embarrassed on the court, and were down 1-3 to the Los Angeles Clippers. McHale then inserts Josh Smith as the team's starting PF for game 5. Smith takes the ball out of 38 year old Jason Terry's hands and plays a point foward role handling, passing, creating, shooting, leading. Rockets make an epic comeback with point forward Smith and win 3 straight to take the series 4-3. It's been written about on this website, so no use denying the truth. We'll see if KJ McDaniels and Sam Dekker do something similar in next year's playoffs. Since both are 3rd string at their positions, unlikely.
He's not a 3. He's a 4. Similar 4s are Lamar Odom and Robert Horry on Championship Lakers teams. Handle, pass, shoot the 3, play D. Slow footed? He's one of the fastest 4s in the league (even at 29) and much faster than Terrence Jones and Donatas Montiejunas at the 4 spot.
Josh is aparent lyrics a very good guy, but I just want to point out that he's always been his own worst enemy with respect to judgement both on the court with shot selection, and off the coort, like when he signed into a terrible situation in Detroit. Much more likely than this being the "fault" of the Rockets is that this is just Josh being Josh again, inexplicably choosing the worse option based on whatever bad criteria he usually uses. Again, he's supposedly a really good guy, so I'm not looking to cracks on him personally, but he has a pretty solid history of head scratching decision making. I see no reason to think his judgement has suddenly become impeccable. Occam's Razor.
The career represents the player's skill-set, but okay let's talk about now. Assists Assist/TO ratio 2014-2015. Regular season and playoffs.
2014-2015 Assists - Regular Season Josh Smith 3.3 Donatas Montiejunas 1.8 Terrence Jones 1.1 Assists - Playoffs Josh Smith 2.7 Terrence Jones 1.0 Donatas Montiejunas DNP Assists - Playoffs Per 36 Josh Smith 4.2 Terrence Jones 1.5 Assist/TO - Regular Season Josh Smith 1.08 Donatas Montiejunas 1.06 Terrence Jones 0.97 Assist/TO - Playoffs Josh Smith 1.21 Terrence Jones 1.06 Donatas Montiejunas DNP No question who the better and higher IQ player is. Josh Smith.
smith to the clips we are now better than the clips because he is done. this is the best news of the off season. don't be swayed by one quarter in a do or die game. yes he came up huge then. but more is so smart to know that it would have only got worse with smith over time. we now have the upper hand on the clips because they have smith and we don't
