Smith can hit 3s and mid ranges. His problem is always shot selection and that can be fixed with right coaching. I like his potential, personally.
Right now with the trades of White and Robinson and the $20M 1st year salary the Rockets would be $139,584 under the cap, now you have to have at least 12 guys so I think the Rockets will have to waive Anderson and his $916,099 salary and then you have two rookie cap holds and still be under the cap. This would leave the Rockets with $8,449,646 with Asik's cap # to try to trade. They can take either $5M or 150% of the returned salary since they would go over the cap in any deal with just Asik. Since the Rockets were not in the luxury tax last season they have a MLE available which is $5M per with a max of 4 years. You are allowed to divide that so you could sign both Delfino and Garcia to matching $2.5M deals. That would still put them $11M below the luxury tax.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Still getting Josh Smith questions. Again, Rox talked with him Monday. Went well. Have had no traction on contract agreement or s&t with Atl</p>— Jonathan Feigen (@Jonathan_Feigen) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Feigen/statuses/353358901418274817">July 6, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Smith is the perfect Rocket offensive player. He finishes at the rim at an extremely high rate. He can shoot the spot up jumper, including the corner 3. He also is an extremely good passer. What he sucks at is the pull up jumper and his shot selection. On the Rockets he would be the 5th option with the starters, instead of being the MAN in Atlanta. If he could accept that role, he's worth the chance.
Gona get at least 12mil in the open market...have to start there or better Once you have your cornerstone franchise players (harden, Howard) you just get the pieces you need to win now
No, the Rockets won't have the $5MLE if they intend to use cap space to sign Dwight. In order to have enough cap space, they need to renounce the non-taxpayer $5M MLE. Otherwise, if you are under the cap, the $5 MLE is added as a caphold to your salaries and cuts into against the $20M free cap space you plan to use to sign Dwight. The Rockets can still use the $2.5M Room MLE, but they have to renounce the $5M nontaxpayer MLE to sign Dwight.
I see Smith fit coming off the bench, but not playing along Howard. Simply because he sucks at shooting, is career 3pt% is horrendous...28%. So if he come off the bench...Rockets can use him for post up and kick out for the pt shooters that can ACTUALLY SHOOT!! But then again, if we can't start him why trade for him and just keep Asik instead...better off that way.
The key is to just get him to NOT shoot 3's. If he can work hard in the offseason and perfect his jump shot he will be deadly. His defense alone is worth the risk. Him and Dwight in the paint would be a lot to handle.
In Morey I trust! Morey knows that Dwight is a bad free throw shooter and bringing in Smith that would be two horrible free throw shooting superstars in late game situations. Very bad numbers and Morey is the master of the numbers.
