The Houston Rockets’ point guard situation is absolutely terrible. The team’s starting point guard is solid, but certainly not within the top ranks of NBA point guards. Patrick Beverley is an adequate, defensive-oriented player. He can play defense and hit the outside shot well enough and not much else. There is a reason why he was ranked 28th in Hoops Habit’s point guard power rankings.
And then we get to the backups. Since the Rockets foolishly traded away Jeremy Lin, the team’s point guard situation has been in shambles. It’s Beverley and not much else. Going into the season, the Rockets backup point guards are: Ishmael Smith, Isaiah Canaan and Jason Terry. We’ve already talked about Terry and his woes. Canaan is unproven and shouldn’t yet be trusted to take the reigns of the bench. This leaves us with Ish Smith.
I will be very up front about it: Ish Smith is not a very good NBA player. In four seasons, Smith has played with six different teams. Think about that for a second. He’s been bad enough that he has been on more teams than the years he’s played in the league. And somehow, teams keep signing him. Let me show you just how bad he has been. Here are his career numbers:
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/25/2014.
He isn’t an offensive threat at all, only averaging a career 2.9 points per game while shooting an absolutely horrendous .392/.217/.571 line from the field. He can’t really pass the ball either, only averaging two assists per game, which projects to only 6.3 per 36 minutes. He shoots free throws at a very Dwight Howard-like 57.1 percent, which would be terrible if he was a center, but as a point guard, it’s completely unacceptable. He shoots the three-pointer like a big man as well, shooting an awful 21.7 percent from deep for his career. That’s simply not going to fly with the Rockets, who need the three-point shooting to help provide space for Howard and James Harden to work.
Here’s a quick look at his advanced statistics as well:
| Season | MP | PER | TS% | TRB% | AST% | STL% | BLK% | TOV% | ORtg | DRtg | OWS | DWS | WS | WS/48 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010-11 | 442 | 7.6 | .406 | 6.1 | 25.5 | 2.1 | 0.3 | 21.5 | 88 | 109 | -0.5 | 0.4 | -0.1 | -0.016 |
| 2011-12 | 234 | 14.1 | .422 | 8.6 | 29.2 | 3.4 | 0.7 | 13.2 | 96 | 103 | 0.0 | 0.3 | 0.3 | .062 |
| 2012-13 | 516 | 8.5 | .379 | 6.6 | 25.0 | 2.1 | 1.3 | 18.6 | 84 | 108 | -0.8 | 0.4 | -0.4 | -0.040 |
| 2013-14 | 1006 | 11.7 | .438 | 7.2 | 26.0 | 2.4 | 1.0 | 17.9 | 98 | 107 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | .048 |
| Career | 2198 | 10.4 | .416 | 7.0 | 26.0 | 2.4 | 0.9 | 18.2 | 92 | 107 | -1.3 | 2.1 | 0.7 | .016 |
Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 9/25/2014.
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Everywhere you look, Ish Smith looks just plain bad. His Player Efficiency Rating (PER) is well below the league average of 15. His True Shooting Percentage (TS%) is terrible at 41.6 percent. He turns the ball over too much relative to his assists, as his Assist Percentage (AST%) to Turnover Percentage (TOV%) is only 26 percent to 18.2 percent. Ish Smith’s career Offensive Rating (ORtg) of 92 is atrocious. His Defensive Rating (DRtg) of 107 isn’t good at all either. Ish Smith is only worth .016 Win Shares per 48 minutes (WS/48) for his career, well below the league average of .100.
With that said, there are still a few positives for Ish Smish. He can rebound very well for a point guard, averaging 1.4 rebounds, which projects to 4.5 rebounds per 36 minutes. That number would be the third highest rebound total for a point guard in the league. Smith also tries to play defense, though he isn’t very good at it. I can’t really spot anything else that is positive about Ish Smith’s game.
Ish Smith absolutely should not be playing the 14.4 minutes per game he played last season. There is nothing about Ish Smith that indicates that he should even be on an NBA roster and the fact that he manages to keep getting signed by NBA teams absolutely baffles me.
Canaan, as young and unproven as he is, should most definitely be the primary back up point guard because Ish Smith is not a player who should be playing substantial minutes. There is no upside to Ish Smith and he provides almost zero value to the Rockets, other than emergency depth. Hopefully, head coach Kevin McHale recognizes this and keeps Smith’s minutes to a minimum.