Josh Smith is one of the most polarising players in the NBA today. Although he was once considered a superstar, that term no longer applies.
That doesn’t mean, however, he can’t be a valuable player on a good basketball team, as he’s proving to be for the Houston Rockets. Earlier in the season Smith was thought of as anything but valuable, leading the Detroit Pistons to waive him with over $27 million left on his contract.
The problem, though, wasn’t Josh Smith. The problem was that Smith and the Pistons were a horrible fit and the rest of the basketball world – outside of Detroit – knew it wasn’t going to work from the get go.
The Pistons already had spacing issues prior to the arrival of Smith, with their two young big-men Andre Drummond and Greg Monroe lacking the ability to hit the outside shot. Adding Josh Smith to the mix, who also struggles shooting the long ball, was always going to end in disaster.
Today’s NBA is all about spacing, and having too many players on the court who can’t shoot three pointers clogs up the offense creating major spacing issues. And thats exactly what happened to Detroit during the Josh Smith era.
Smith’s failures in Detroit had more to do with poor roster management rather than poor play on his behalf. While Smith was set-up to fail in Detroit, the opposite is true of his experience in Houston.
The Rockets are a very well run organisation. While some looked at Josh Smith’s performance in Detroit and wrote him off, Houston knew he could be a valuable contributor for their team when used in the right way. Although he made a name for himself as a small forward, thats no longer the ideal position for Smith.
Since arriving in Houston, Smith has mainly been used as a small-ball power forward and sometimes even at center in ultra-small line-ups. That’s the best way to utilise the talents of Josh Smith. Defensively he’s strong enough to match-up against bigger power forwards and athletic enough to cover stretch-fours. On offense as a power forward, Smith can play closer to the basket eliminating some of the horrific three pointers he was throwing up in Detroit.
Also helping Smith’s cause is the pure hatred the Rockets hierarchy have with players shooting long two pointers. Amazingly, it took advanced analytical data to convince ‘smart’ NBA minds, what should have been painfully obvious – long two-point shots are bad!
Prior to his stint in Houston, Smith had been a serial offender of the long two pointer – the least efficient shot in basketball. With Smith taking less of these, unsurprisingly his shooting percentages are the highest they’ve been since his glory days in Atlanta.
The Dallas Mavericks are finding out how damaging Josh Smith can be playing in the right system. He’s a big reason the Rockets are up 2-0 in the playoff series against the Mavs.
While Houston’s mid-season acquisition of Smith is paying dividends, the same can’t be said for the Mavericks mid-season acquisition of Rajon Rondo.
Just as Smith didn’t work in Detroit, Rondo isn’t working out in Dallas. Without going into full detail of all Rondo’s flaws – take a look at this Roar article from Jay Croucher for that – let’s just say the pairing of Monta Ellis and Rajon Rondo never made sense.
While both players are skilled offensively, they are very limited shooting from behind the arc. The Mavericks were hoping Rick Carlisle could blend the two ball-dominating guards into an efficient NBA offense but that hasn’t been the case.
Rondo will be a free-agent at the end of the season, and there is no chance he returns to Dallas. There is also no chance he gets offered a max contract but as the Josh Smith and Houston Rockets partnership is proving, under the right circumstances and more to the point in the right system, Rondo can still be an effective player.
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