First of all, I love Josh Smith. I don't think I could really love him more as a player or as a personality and I think he brought great things to the team. BUT... I've been posting about this a lot. The hacking rule isn't changing. We already have the imminently hackable Dwight but it's even a better bet hacking Josh. And I've felt since the playoffs that we can't afford to have three extremely hackable players in our rotation (Howard, Smith, Brewer). How do we finish a game with Howard and Smith on the floor when our opponents know how to send them to the bench at any time. If we had resigned Josh we'd have two of the three most hackable players in the league in our core rotation. With this signing we don't but the Clippers do. If the rules aren't changing I'm hacking the hell out of the Clips next year. And as much as it hurts to lose Josh our other bigs apart from Dwight are not hackable. D-Mo, Jones, and Capela all shoot right around the same 60-something % from the line and that's just good enough for it to be a bad move to hack them. I'm sorry to see Josh go but I think it might be for the best in the long run.
If I were Morey, I'd go talk to Dwight. "Just what the f*** did you tell him? What are you and Fegan up to? You gonna opt out on me?"
there better be a trade set up or we might be in for an ugly time with how good the other teams have become
So much for that F-. Every other team in the Top 5 in the West from last season had a much better offseason than us. The Spurs...nuff said. The Clippers stole DeAndre back from Dallas and actually have a respectable bench now. The Grizzlies resigned Gasol and replaced Koufos with Wright. And the Warriors resigned everyone and ditched Lee's salary. I hope Morey's got something up his sleeve. Cuz simply hanging onto Brewer and Bev ain't gonna cut it.
I still think back to when McHale and Smith had that true player coach moment when they beat the Mavs. Can't believe Smith let that go. ESP to the team he beat to augment the bond. I dont get it:////
We don't know that yet. What if Morey lowballed him? Or what if the Clippers offered a longer deal or a wink wink under the table promise to take care of him next summer when the cap goes up?
so Josh to less money and a lesser role to go to the Clips? Was he butthurt Morey didn't give him the MLE?
hopefully dip**** chris paul keeps ****ing with deandre and lance stevenson gets beat up by paul pierce in the locker room while josh smith becomes detroit j smoove
In addition to DMO & Tjones (and Harrell)....we could see some "small ball" 4 lineups with Ariza and Dekker and Brewer manning the PF spot at times.
Every contender has taken steps forward to while we've made the splash worthy moves of adding Dekker, Harrel, and the forgotten chucker Marcus Thornton to maintain 2016 flexibility for when KD ditches the west to go home and play for his hometown Wizards. Our offseason may be the worst of all the contenders so far.
Remember that we have DMo and Jones. They are more than capable at the 4 rotation. Montrezl could make one of them more available if he can contribute early. If we sign KJ, one of him, Ariza and Dekker could be offered in a trade for the second playmaker, which is looking like it's going to be at PG based on the depth chart
Damn the Clippers actually have a bench now. All that talk about how hard it will be to improve the roster for them. Well they got DJ back as planned, Rivers back, traded for Stephenson, got Pierce and stole Smith from us for the vet min (WTF??) ..that's one heck of a team.
