Around the League: Week 9 12/22-12/28

[carey]

Will get the rest of the post up in a second, but Detroit just waived Josh Smith... with like $26 Million remaining on his deal.

[Indy]

I came here to post the same thing. Crazy.

[Sunsfan4life]

That was such a poor fit from the beginning. If he was causing problems in the locker room (likely) then it was the right move by the Pistons. Nobody was taking that contract.

[Sunsfan4life]

and if the pistons are "prioritizing" the future and Greg Monroe isn't part of it, I'd be interested for sure.

[Ring_Wanted]

So where is he going. Place your bets!

Clippers?

Sacramento?

[sunset rubdown]

So where is he going. Place your bets!

Clippers?

Sacramento?

Kings, I would say.

Are we interested to put a bid to claim him off the waivers? Thoughts?

J-Smoove for around 7 mil per year?

[OE32]

So where is he going. Place your bets!

Clippers?

Sacramento?

Kings, I would say.

Are we interested to put a bid to claim him off the waivers? Thoughts?

J-Smoove for around 7 mil per year?

I think not. He and Tucker are similar, and I'll take the guy who can hit the 3 ball.

[Indy]

Don't we have to pay him if we claim him?

[sunset rubdown]

I would play Smith strictly at 4.

[sunset rubdown]

Don't we have to pay him if we claim him?

Sure. If we bid, for example 7 mil, then we need to pay him that amount per year till the end of his current contract. Pistons would pay the rest.

[Indy]

Got it. I thought if you claimed him off waivers you had to pay him his current contract.

[Ring_Wanted]

Miami could make some sense too since McBob is down and they play Bosh at C a lot.

[sunset rubdown]

Oops, I stand corrected. Smith is waived, not amnestied, so a team who want to get him off the waivers need to pay him a full amount. My bad.

[carey]

Oops, I stand corrected. Smith is waived, not amnestied, so a team who want to get him off the waivers need to pay him a full amount. My bad.

This is correct. There's only one team in the league that can claim him off of waivers and that is Philadelphia. They have the cap room necessary to snag him.

Once Josh clears waivers there are a couple things I think could happen.

1) The obvious Kings scenario. The Kings have been pursuing him heavily since last year even though they are supposedly making personnel decisions based on stats these days (and Smith sucks at just about every advanced metric there is.)

2) Houston. How obvious is the fit? With Jones still out for a while he might look good there. An athletic shot blocking 4 next to Howard? If you could keep him from shooting 3's it could really work. Big if.

3) Dallas. He's Rajon Rondo's childhood friend. They've wanted to play together forever. However, does this pass Kerr's Knucklehead Rule? If each team is allowed one Knucklehead could adding Smith to a team that already starts Monta Ellis and Rajon Rondo cause the entire thing to implode? I actually think this is the scenario I'd like to see most.

4) Suns. He's a natural fast breaking 4. He'd be perfect here and could immediately start allowing Kieff to go to the bench with his brother. However, this only makes sense if we get the Atlanta version and not the Detroit version. Though half the teams in the league would sign up for the Atlanta Josh Smith on a bargain deal.

5) Golden State. Another open floor team with a need in the front court. With David Lee still out and Bogut continually nursing a lot of injuries Harrison Barnes has been having to play a bit of 4 in their small ball line-ups. Smith I think is a natural fit here, but GS's chemistry is maybe the best in the league right now. Why fuck with that?

[Mori Chu]

What a weird story. He has multiple years left on his deal! This never happens.

Honestly I think what has happened here is that SVG is upset and is letting his emotions affect his decisions as a GM. I think this is a great example of why your coach should not be your president/GM. SVG is mad at Josh Smith for not following some defensive scheme or not avoiding bad 3-point shots or whatever, so he just says "I want this guy out of here" and dumps him with no regard for the team or for his value as an asset. There is no way that would happen if they had a separate GM.

I think this is really dumb of the Pistons to release him like that. Yes, he's probably an annoying player, maybe a borderline cancer. But okay, bench him then. Announce that you're having a Josh Smith fire sale. Trade him for anything. A pick. A second-round pick. A marginal role player. But by just waiving him, they have to eat the money and cap space left on his entire contract and get literally nothing for him. It's just a stupid basketball GM decision.

Are the Pistons the biggest train wreck in the NBA? Or does that go to the Lakers, Philly, etc.?

[carey]

Announce that you're having a Josh Smith fire sale. Trade him for anything. A pick. A second-round pick. A marginal role player. But by just waiving him, they have to eat the money and cap space left on his entire contract and get literally nothing for him. It's just a stupid basketball GM decision.

Mori, they tried. Everyone knew Smith was on the market and available. All they were offered were bad contracts in return. No positive assets to improve the team. They opted to stretch provision him instead so I guess the money saved off the cap by doing that looked better than whatever pupu platter the Kings were trying to give them.

I don't know the internal dynamics of what was going on but obviously it was pretty bad for them to eat 2 years and $26 Million.

[EDC]

You have to love SVG. I heard he was trying to trade him but no one wanted to give up anything but garbage.

I heard the cap hit will be 5 mill a year after this one. That isn't too bad.

It definitely shakes things up and Detroit needed that.

[carey]

I heard the cap hit will be 5 mill a year after this one. That isn't too bad.

Yeah but it's remaining years X 2 plus 1. So that cap hit is going to spread out over 5 years. It's not terrible but it's not good. Just ask the Suns who are still paying Josh Childress to hit people in Europe.

[Uncle_Gene]

Can't believe the Pistons couldn't trade him and can't believe they just decided to eat the remaining $26 million left on his deal.

[Ring_Wanted]

I think this is really dumb of the Pistons to release him like that.

I think it's not. A cancer needs to be extirpated. A team that has employed Shannon Brown, Michael Beasley and Marcus Banks should be well aware of that. Sometimes relationships are part the fixing point and the best is to just break loose.