Basketball's secret? Knowing when to say goodbye

Bill Simmons wrote about the secret of basketball in his book The Book of Basketball.

He tells the reader he learned the secret from NBA legend Isiah Thomas, who cryptically tells him that basketball is not about basketball.

What Thomas means by this, is winning basketball is not about having the best players with the best stats. Winning basketball is about assembling a group of players who play the best together.

In a sense, a winning basketball team is like a complex machine which requires all of its parts interconnecting perfectly and moving together in the right direction to make it function effectively.

With this ideal in mind, led to Detroit sensationally waived Josh Smith from its roster, despite the further two years and $26 million owed to him after this season which they were still on the hook for.

It’s not that Smith isn’t a talented player that led to his ‘sacking’; it was his poor fit with the Detroit roster.

At his best Smith plays as an ultra-athletic power forward who is a gifted passer and able to rack up blocks, steals and points in the paint.

At his worst Smith plays as a small forward who drifts out on the perimeter where he is prone to fall in love with his broken jump shot.

At these times he takes an inexcusable amount of long twos, regarded as the worst shot in basketball, and three pointers which he can’t make with any regularity.

Detroit already had the promising Greg Monroe playing in Smith’s most effective position of power forward when he arrived.

They also had prodigiously talented big man Andre Drummond – a man who is seen as the future of the franchise.

Both Monroe and Drummond have limited range on their shot and do most of their work on the offensive end close to the basket, where Smith also thrives.

This forced Smith to play more as a small forward, which seduced him into playing to his weaknesses on the perimeter.

This season, new coach Stan Van Gundy attempted to solve the problem by moving Smith to power forward and the increasingly disgruntled Monroe to the bench.

The move failed to work as Smith still struggled to play alongside even just one of either Monroe or Drummond.

While he cut down his three point attempts, he continued to shoot bricks, posting the worst field goal percentage of his career.

The Pistons have been terrible this season and have decided the best way to fix the patient is to cut out the problem.

As Smith is at home packing his bags, another case of poor fit is currently playing out in Charlotte with Lance Stephenson.

Acquired as a free agent during the off season, Stephenson has looked awful in his time in purple and teal.

It has gotten so bad, so quickly, reports are they are already looking to trade him out after only two months together.

Charlotte are coming off a successful season were they made the playoffs and were looking to build on their momentum.

Stephenson was seen as coup at the time, with his multifaceted game being added to the Hornets up-and-coming roster.

This was despite being well known for his immature and erratic behaviour that can destabilise locker rooms and frustrates opponents.

He has proven a poor fit in the backcourt with the Charlotte’s star point guard Kemba Walker.

Both players prefer the ball in hand to create the dribble which has led to spacing issues on offence and frustrated team mates.

With Stephenson in the line-up, Charlotte started the season with a horrible 6 and 19 record. Then injury struck, forcing Stephenson to miss the last three games.

During his absence from the court, the Hornets have won three in a row. While wins against lowly teams Philadelphia, Utah and Denver are usually not noteworthy, they won each game emphatically by 18, 28 and 28 respectively.

Stephenson could also find himself waived if Charlotte cannot find a trade partner – an outcome which is sounding increasingly unlikely by the day.

The benefits of removing a bad fit from your team, such as Smith and Stephenson, can be seen last season when Toronto traded Rudy Gay.

In his time at Toronto, Gay took whatever shot he liked, whenever he felt like it. This led to a career high in field goal attempts at the lowest percentage of his career and his team struggling to win games.

When he was traded him to Sacramento it was viewed as a move to tank the season by Toronto, by ridding themselves of the player considered their best despite his inefficiencies.

The trade brought in depth with some solid role players, the team fit better, skillsets no longer overlapped and the ball was now more in the hands of more effective players such as DeMar DeRozen and Kyle Lowry. This resulted in Toronto resurrecting their season to finish third in the East.

Sometimes the path to winning basketball is as simple as addition by subtraction and understanding basketball is not about basketball.