This past summer the Detroit Pistons signed forward Josh Smith to a four-year, $54 million contract. Smith spent the first nine years of his NBA career with the Atlanta Hawks where he averaged 15.3 points per game. Last season Smith sought a max deal from the Hawks which he never received. The Hawks were not willing to up the bread for Smith’s services while the Pistons were a different breed. Pistons president of basketball operations Joe Dumars was hopeful that Smith could lead his young team, but instead he has been unable to put Detroit onto his broad shoulders.
This season Smith has scored a little bit above his career average in points as he is netting 15.9 points per contest. Smith is shooting a career worst 42 percent from the field. Also Smith is only shooting 23 percent from beyond the three-point line which is the worst that he has shot since his rookie season. But this is something that Dumars and the Pistons should have been wary of when Smith was signed last summer.
During his tenure with the Hawks, Smith was never really considered as the first option as that title typically fell to the likes of former Hawks shooting guard Joe Johnson and current Hawks forward Al Horford. Smith has never been a guy that you would consider a superstar in the NBA and he is not a player that would be considered as a building block for a franchise. What Smith is ultimately is a player that is just one of the guys that was actually paid by the Pistons to be “the guy”. You cannot force someone to be a leader when they simply lack the trait and this is something that Dumars and the Pistons have attempted to do with Smith.
This season former Pistons head coach Maurice Cheeks benched Smith earlier in the campaign for missing a practice. Smith never appeared to be on the same page with Cheeks who was fired by Dumars a few days ago, but not much has changed for Smith after the coaching change. Since Cheeks’ firing, Smith has only scored 54 points; including 14 points and 4 rebounds in last night’s 116-98 loss to the Charlotte Bobcats where Smith was just 7-for-18 from the field.
The Pistons currently find themselves in ninth place in the Eastern Conference. The Bobcats are the team that the Pistons are chasing for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. The Pistons really have not helped themselves as they have dropped two consecutive games to the Bobcats to start the second half of the season. In those two games when the Pistons needed Smith to step up he pulled a disappearing act just scoring 26 points and 15 rebounds in both games.
At 6’9″, 225 lbs, Smith is a classic “tweener”. Smith can play both forward positions but the Pistons need him to be more of a perimeter player being that they have young studs in Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond plugging the middle.
After this season the Pistons are still on the hook to pay Smith $40.5 million dollars over the next three seasons which means that both parties must find a way to make this marriage work. The head coach that was on the Pistons payroll when Smith was brought in has been terminated and it isn’t exactly etched in stone that Dumars will be around in Detroit next season after several moves, including the signing of Smith have not worked. In this day and age of the tight salary cap in the NBA, teams must proceed with caution when it comes to handing out big deals to players. Monroe is making nearly $4.1 million this season and he will be a free agent this summer while Drummond is earning $2.5 million this season, but he isn’t scheduled to hit free agency until 2016.
Dumars had been developing the Pistons through the draft, but he wanted to make a splash last summer with Smith and instead he has sunk to the depths of the Detroit River.
Source: Basketball-reference.com
Leave A Comment