OT: Josh Smith to Pistons
Josh Smith has agreed to a four-year, $56 million deal with the Detroit Pistons league sources told Yahoo! Sports.
CBSSports has a short writeup on some of the reasoning behind the deal (LINK).
Matt Moore had this to say:
"The Pistons reportedly want to play Smith at small forward alongside Gregg Monroe and Andre Drummond, which would avoid a concern about a logjam in the frontcourt. The concern here is that it leads to Smith as more of a perimeter option, which leads to his dreaded jumpshot."
It also mentions that Josh Smith had been a popular Plan B in the Dwight Howard sweepstakes supposedly, so this is Dumars' way of making something of a splash, it would seem.
Well, considering before he got hurt, Rondo was one of the 10 best players i the league, and that he's on an amazing contract, a lot better.
Landing Rondo would make Pistons a legitimate top 5 team in the conference. Throw in the fact that LBJ might leave Miami after 2013 season to the Western Conference team, the Eastern Conference got weaker.
Look at Memphis and Indiana, they have big time spacing issues with lack of shooter on the roster. They are still fine. Although, their defense is at an elite level which helps. Pistons have 2 frontcourt players who can defend the paint in Drummond and Smith. If they trade Moose for Rondo, Rondo is another quality perimeter defender. KCP is another potential quality defender based on his athleticism. Joe Dumars is trying to make his team younger and more athletic this off-season and he accomplished it. I bet Mo Cheeks will let them loose with a bit of a run and gun style which fits the roster well.
Yeah. I'm going to go ahead and say you don't know anything about the NBA.
So what would be your plan? Let's hear it.
We aren't bad enough to tank, even without Smith. Monroe, Drummond, and Knight are all solid players, and if we drafted Burke over KCP, who you seem to be claiming will be a borderline all star caliber player, there's no chance we'll be in position to get any blue chip caliber prospects in the draft. We also traded away our 2014 draft pick (top 8 protected), so that blows a hole in your plan right off the bat.
If you tank, you risk losing your good young pieces. If we tanked this year, do you think Monroe would want to re-sign with us? Or would Drummond in a few years? The young core has been built through the draft, now you gotta build around them. CV and BG signings were awful and set us back years. We're out from under that next year and the Smith contract isn't as devastating as people are making it out to be. It'll be a movable piece in a few years if it doesn't work out.
are Miami(who may be broken apart after 2013 season anyway with Bosh's albatross contract[amnesty option] and LBJ may opt out of his contract) and Indiana.
NYK, Brooklyn and Chicago are solid but have flaws that prevents them from winning the NBA. They're not good enough to reach elite status but could be bad enough if breaks aren't in their way that lower tier teams could steal the playoff spot from them.
Eastern Conference is bad that Pistons can make the playoff with the current roster and still improve into the top tier conference.
There are a lot of quality point guards (think Mike Conley, Jrue Holiday, Brandon Jennings, Jeff Teague, Goran Dragic), but that doesn't mean you shouldn't get one of the elite point guards (CP3, Rondo, Westbrook, Rose) when you have the opportunity. Especially one who is a great defeder, rebounder, and facilitator like Rondo.
We could basically build our team in the mold of Indiana. A monsterous defense and rebounding club, that grinds you out, and wears you down. That seems to be the direction we're going regardless of whether we land Rondo or not.
As far as the championship talk. Let's be realistic. We first have to actually make the playoffs consistently before we can talk about championships. That is aside from the fact that any given season there are only 2 or 3 teams capable of winning a championship. As Dork Elvis says, the key to building a championship caliber team is to gather as much silver as possible and eventually trade that silver in for gold. That seems to be what the Pistons are doing. Josh Smith is another silver piece to go along with the ones we already have.
It takes time to build a championship caliber team in the NBA, and the Pistons are far too good to tank, even without Josh Smith. Unless you're advocating trading Monroe and Knight for picks and just completely starting over, this was a good move. As I've pointed out before, tanking doesn't work any better than building a team through trades and free agency. Even when you hit, it still might not work out. Just ask Orlando (Shaq, Howard), or Cleveland (LeBron).
That is Joe Bumfeeler's opinion, not that of a journalist.
He's a bad fit, but the Pistons had to do something with all of the big name players coming off the board. If Joe D didn't land Iggy, Howard, Paul, or Smith, it would have been a massive failure.
Collect blue chip players and worry about the fit later.
If he manages a Monroe for Rondo trade, then no one will be worrying about fit.
I am however, not looking forward to watching Josh Smith jack up a bunch of long twos.
Think about it like this, this give us lots of felxibility in front court. We can play Dre and Smith vs teams that are athletic as hell. We can go small and play Monroe and Smith. We can go big and play all three. This also opens it up to trade Monroe for a lets say Rondo.
Remember this isnt CV or Ben Gorden, this is an all star, which neither of them have ever been. He is a 18-8-4 guy, and is easily best player on team now. The only bad part of his game is his 3pt shooting and sometimes not really putting in full effort sometimes, still is a plus defender though.
This isnt a perfect move, but it isnt a bad one either.
2- since when did an 18-8-4 guy become a thing or metric. The old metric was a 20-10 guy. Color me still unimpressed with Josh Smith
Let it go..
if this blog isn't a Michigan blog, people would be happy with the pick. Every non-Michigan Pistons fans are high on KCP.
The best part about these NBA threads is that it reminds me to update the list of people I block on MGoBlog.
Interesting debates. I don't agree with the loser strategy of tanking the season and hoping on hope that you become a contender through the draft when A) having a higher pick makes zero guarantees that the player drafted will be any more successful and B) with good scouting and about the same amount of luck an impact player can be drafted at a lower position while your team is not as far away from competing. Why would you choose to start from 0 when you have to enter a lottery and hope to get a pick and a player that works?
I'm glad the Pistons aren't following Disney movie dreams and betting on a savior through the draft. Competitive teams build with smart drafting, FA pick ups and developing talent.
$14/year in the NBA is in the low 20s as far as contracts are concerned. And Smith's numbers fit nicely with his pay. Also, keep in mind the roster is not set.
The Spurs didn't tank they had a crappy season b/c IIRC David Robinson was injured. Even when the Pistons have been "accidentally" bad they haven't gotten a high lottery pick. The only pick was Darko and that was acquired via trade. The thing is even if the Pistons get a great player through the draft, they'll still need other pieces. Why not set yourself up to be a piece or two away from competing when that piece could come from the draft, free agency or via trade instead of just banking on the draft?
I find it interesting that while some are questioning Joe D's ability to do his job you and a few others want him to hope luck does the job for him.
I don't recall them sucking as much as possible by choice. Popovich inserting himself as coach seems to have been a great move. Also, they already had a very good team, injuries put them in the lottery. You're saying the Pistons shouldn't get better and purposely become a bottom-feeder on the off chance they get a great player. Next year is a deep draft, but none of those players are guaranteed to fall to the Pistons and none of them are guaranteed to work out as some superstars have.
I didn't say the key piece cannot come from the draft but if it does you'll still need additional pieces and no championship team has gotten them all from the draft. If you wait on the draft all your eggs are in a basket with significant structural issues, while if you don't depend on the draft you could still benefit from it, albeit from a lower pick, while having the opportunity to take the final few steps through other means, free agency and trades.
Smith not being an All-Star is hardly a knock on his game as there are maybe 8 front court positions and 3 of those go to pure centers, then there's Lebron and Carmelo who are pretty much guaranteed a spot. So there are maybe 3 spots and Smith was 7th in votes in the East.
(Dang this is getting long) Also, there are many more trades that have benefitted a champion, Kobe was traded to the Lakers, Sheed to the Pistons.
M-Wolverine is right, that the Spurs tanked, but it was a weird season for them. They probably shouldn't have gotten the number 1 pick, and the Cs were more in line for it, but tanking almost never works. You can argue it does, but I'd like to see the evidence. Guys being picked 8, 9, 10, 13, are not evidence that tanking works, those aren't picks you tank for.
Like I said with the silver and gold thing, you might not be able to sign any marquee free agents due to signing Smith, but you can definitely trade for a superstar with a guy like Smith. Someone who otherwise might be not willing to go to the Pistons might consider it thanks to the roster we have now.
Edit: Just to be clear, I love talking NBA with you, so grazie, friend.
I like the fact that Joe D has made a big move that gets the Pistons closer to competing. A piece or two more through any means could get the Pistons (close) to the top of the East. No one has a frontcourt like the Pistons potentially have (since Drummond and Monroe still need to develop).
Also, I hate the draft lottery b/c the Pistons always get screwed. They always stay where they are or drop (like this year) while Cleveland wins 3 lotteries in about a decade.
And I didn't mean loser strategy as in you guys are losers. Just thought of how that can come off jerkish. Just the losing on purpose strategy itself bugs me.