NBA: Only Josh Smith Can Fix Josh Smith
By Phil Watson
Give new Detroit Pistons president and head coach Stan Van Gundy credit—he was at least able to get his owner to cut his losses and eat a ton of cash.
The Pistons on Monday placed forward Josh Smith on waivers, bringing to an end roughly a season and a third-long experiment that turned out horribly for everyone involved.
Smith was doomed to fail, miscast as a small forward with a clogged interior already featuring Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond.
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That tempted Smith to do what he loves to do, what every coach he’s ever played for hates him to do and what fans groan and curse about seeing him do—take jump shots.
Smith is a terrible 3-point shooter, but last season that didn’t stop him from taking 3.4 long balls a game … and hitting just 26.4 percent of them.
This year under Van Gundy he was showing a bit more discipline—his 3-point attempts were down to 1.3 per game (still about 1.3 more per game than a coach would want to see), but he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with much of anything.
At the time he was waived, Smith was shooting just 39.1 percent overall, 24.3 percent from 3-point range and 46.8 percent from the free throw line.
The Pistons are on the hook for roughly $36 million over the next two-plus seasons, but they can ease the salary cap damage done by using the NBA’s stretch provision.
If Smith clears waivers—spoiler alert: he will—over the next 24 hours or so, he can sign anywhere he wants.
You would have to think that would be an eye-opener for a player—a team is willing to pay you $35 million not to play for them. But that is the Josh Smith story in a nutshell.
He’s a player who appears to have all of the tools to be a good to great power forward, but with the exception of the 2009-10 season under coach Mike Woodson in Atlanta, no one has been able to stop Smith from jacking up jump shots at a rate that is not commensurate with either his skill set or his team’s best interests.
In that 2009-10 season, Smith took only seven 3-pointers in 81 games—showing he does have the ability to discipline himself. Not coincidentally, he shot a career-high 50.5 percent from the floor that season.
The frustrating part of Smith’s game is that he can do just about everything—score inside, rebound, pass, defend, block shots—but he insists on focusing on the one thing he can’t do well and that’s take perimeter shots.
This isn’t an unheard of phenomenon in sports, particularly basketball—centers want to be point guards, point guards want to be centers and so on.
But Josh Smith is 29 years old. He’s in his 11th season in the NBA. Doesn’t the light have to come on for him at some point?
There will be no shortage of suitors—the Sacramento Kings, Dallas Mavericks, Miami Heat and Los Angeles Clippers will reach out to him, according to ESPN.com, and per Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports, the Houston Rockets are said to have the inside track (they have an in—Smith and Dwight Howard played AAU ball together back in Atlanta when they were teenagers).
But we’re beyond the point where Kevin McHale or whatever coach gets him next can somehow get through to him.
No, the only person who can save Josh Smith now … is Josh Smith.
Otherwise, he’ll continue to be the same guy he’s been for more than a decade—a talented enigma who won’t focus his game around his strengths.