I am not an expert at all, but Smith's bad FG % outside of 3-point shooting, his inferior creativity, meh ast/to ratio and not that impressive steals/blocks make me wonder why people would rate him above either of the two others?
I'm not even sure you'd consider Smith a bust when all that's expected of him to play sound defense and shoot 3s. He's basically going to have that Klay Thompson/Kris Middleton/Jalen Brown type of role where if he plays bad someone else gets blamed for the loss but if he plays well he gets all the credit.
Curious how many playoff wins the Rockets organization has in the last 10 years vs the Magic/Thunder/Kings combined. Throw in the Pacers/Pelicans/Blazers/Pistons too.
Again with placing players into boxes to determine their value while the league is becoming more positionless year by year. Al Horford is one of the 3 slowest players in the entire league yet he is playing the 4 spot in crunch time against the Warriors in the NBA finals.
Yeah I don’t buy that. I saw several teams have their guard switch on him and he stayed in front of them and defended well obviously it’s when he was engaged so there’s definitely room for improvement.
Last 10 years: Rockets - 41 wins Thunder - 33 wins Blazers - 22 wins Magic - 2 wins Pistons - 0 wins Kings - 0 wins Pacers - 27 wins Pelicans - 7 wins
Going to be so typical if we've all set ourselves on Paolo and Orl or OKC ends up taking him. Paolo -> Mike Miller -> Orlando
Yup and the stats back up what you are saying. Against guards after switches, he was exceptional. It was the drop rotation stuff he struggled with. Pick & Rolls defending the screener, etc.
Vecenie has been up and down on Paolo. He loved him earlier. WTF? IMO Paolo is better athlete, better pop verticality, than Smith. And his lateral agility looks fine when focused. Smith just plays like his hair's on fire all the time.
Maybe he wants Paolo to fall to Houston? Maybe he is hearing OKC might draft him so he wants to put a negative piece out
I actually don't think that's a problem. That proposed lineup consists entirely of guys 22 or younger minus Mathews who isn't exactly an established veteran. Going that young is a recipe for bad development.