Well as much as I would love to have him on our team, I much rather spend that max on another player... Smith is a great player for the right price, not the max.
Seriously, what does "max" mean really when it comes to NBA contracts? For example, if I ask on this board whether Tyson Chandler or Nene make max or near-max, I bet most people would say yes. Yet neither really are due to the fact that the max salary differs by years played. If you go by the lowest version of max, 25% of the salary cap and what a 4th year RFA can get, that number is only 4yr/$58mil. Is Josh Smith worth that? Maybe, maybe not. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets something similar. It would be "max" in terms of relative to what many other max players make. Even if it falls way short of the techinical max salary allowed.
The market will dictate that he's a Max player...an athletic big forward that plays defense...yep he'll certainly get paid.
But Smith isn't a very good impact power forward. It's good that he mentioned Brook Lopez in his quote, because I think he's around Brook Lopez level. If you could combine Smith's body with Lopez's brain maybe you'd have a legit max player.
Tbh, I'd easily take Brook over Smith. There aren't many low post guys that you can throw the ball to on a broken play and he'll bail you out and find a good shot for himself. He's smart, good teammate, fundamentally sound and still very young. You can work around sub-par rebounding. Smith is the Monta Ellis of PFs with a flashy defense but not really a huge overall impact. Like, if one had to pick Lamar Odom in his prime or Smith, would it be Smith? I don't think so..
I'd say Al Horford has been their best player by quite a significant margin despite playing out of position, and they've silently build a very interesting deep supporting cast full of great shooters. Jeff Teague, Lou Williams, Kyle Korver, Ivan Johnson - any of these players would help the Rockets a ton. Then they have Zaza, Morrow, Devin Harris, their rookie Jenkins has probably the best looking shot in this rookie class next to Beal. A very deep, interesting team. An amazing job by Danny Ferry.
I think Josh Smith is basically saying to the Atlanta Hawks that if you don't plan to offer me the max, trade me to a team that will before the deadline. Its his way of saying i want out, but if i get the max, I'll stay.
and they were 44-38 the year before with Joe Johnson, Horford and Smith healthy. So the conclusion is what, Horford = losses?
Aren't you proving his point that Horford doesn't affect wins and losses as much as a star player should? When was the last time a true star player went out and the team didn't miss a beat?
no, i'm trying to show that Al Horford is a losing player. You put him into a lineup, you are going to lose 10 extra games. Then again, the best Hawks season since Mutombo was in 2010, with that same healthy Horford/Johnson/Smith. So maybe that whole line of thinking is rather superficial and flawed.
There's a difference, Josh Smith could probably put tails in the seat alone for an ultra-mundane, run-of-the-mill NBA franchise (Charlotte, Toronto). So, the possibility of Smith receiving a max-deal in reality is somewhat fathomable, especially when a team may have enough to spend that on him, since he's a fairly marketable NBA star. It's not as simple as your analogy. Comparing yourself to an NBA superstar in that sense is somewhat delusional and missing the mark. I could easily see Smith getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 12-15 million a year. Maybe not a max deal, but close to it.
Pat and mook already do for this team what smith would do for a fraction of the price. We need a post player.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Josh Smith's reps will speak with Hawks' GM Danny Ferry this week about Smith's future in ATL, sources say.</p>— Chris Broussard (@Chris_Broussard) <a href="https://twitter.com/Chris_Broussard/status/295677838017843200">January 27, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
