74 replies to this topic

[majik19]

Smith is going to be a better version of Terence Jones last year. The difference is Smith will be able to bring it against good teams when Jones ate up bad teams. Smith can guard the Aldridges and Griffins, Jones can't. Jones wasn't that great of a shooter either - just enough to where you couldn't leave him alone in a corner. Oh, and Smith can actually pass - it could turn into more easy looks for Howard and maybe even Harden. 

 

The great thing about Motiejunas is he has evolved sufficiently where he can backup at 4 and 5. He'll also be able to eat up backup 4s and 5s on offense and be a primary option on the 2nd unit (something we have BADLY needed this year). 

[Celedhring]

I'm not sold on Josh Smith...considering that one of the worst teams in the NBA just flat out let him go while on the hook for a 26mil salary should be a red flag.

 

That said, as another contributor said..if the coaching staff can structure his play towards a more productive direction (no taking bad shots, especially from the outside) he could turn out to be a steal especially with the gratituous pleasure of knowing that Chandler Parson's HUGE contract was a reason the Mavs couldn't afford to offer as much as the Rockets could to Josh Smith.  And it's just for one season.

 

Josh Smith has one season to prove he can play with the Rockets.  I'm not thrilled about moving Donuts back into a reserve role..he was starting to play well and had some great games (especially that 25 point game !) And D-Mo has a much better postup game than Dwight Howard ever had.  (sorry to say this, but it's true..Dwight's game is so simple that it's only through his strength and sheer atheleticism that it actually works)   Motiejunas' postup game is a good deal closer to Hakeem's than Howard's will ever be.

 

If he pans out..then damn, the Rockets will have a defensive answer for Notwiziki and Aldridge.

 

And has anyone noticed that Ariza has been in a lengthy shooting slump of late ?

[thejohnnygold]

I'm not sold on Josh Smith...considering that one of the worst teams in the NBA just flat out let him go while on the hook for a 26mil salary should be a red flag.

 

That said, as another contributor said..if the coaching staff can structure his play towards a more productive direction (no taking bad shots, especially from the outside) he could turn out to be a steal especially with the gratituous pleasure of knowing that Chandler Parson's HUGE contract was a reason the Mavs couldn't afford to offer as much as the Rockets could to Josh Smith.  And it's just for one season.

 

Josh Smith has one season to prove he can play with the Rockets.  I'm not thrilled about moving Donuts back into a reserve role..he was starting to play well and had some great games (especially that 25 point game !) And D-Mo has a much better postup game than Dwight Howard ever had.  (sorry to say this, but it's true..Dwight's game is so simple that it's only through his strength and sheer atheleticism that it actually works)   Motiejunas' postup game is a good deal closer to Hakeem's than Howard's will ever be.

 

If he pans out..then damn, the Rockets will have a defensive answer for Notwiziki and Aldridge.

 

And has anyone noticed that Ariza has been in a lengthy shooting slump of late ?

 

This keeps getting mentioned, but I whole-heartedly disagree.  Van Gundy had to make a choice in trying to put out the dumpster fire that is the Detroit Pistons.  He can't move Smith because the salaries need to match and he needs the space to re-sign Drummond and Monroe.  The teams that wanted him weren't willing to give up what he wanted so they cut bait--it was that or wait out his contract, lose Monroe, and postpone a meaningful rebuild for another few years.  Van Gundy's system and style is not the right fit for Smith.

 

None of this makes Smith a "cancer".  It is simply a way to continue the narrative while turning a blind eye to the fact that this move makes sense for both sides.  Turning a blind eye to all the circumstance that led to Atlanta letting him go.  Turning a blind eye to the fact that some of the most well-respected franchises (which include well-respected coaches and GM's) were lining up to sign him.  "Cancer"....riiiiiiiiight, you know, because smart people line up for that.

 

Smith is not a marching band kind of guy.  He's fusion jazz.  Surround him with other great "players", put him on the court, and watch the magic happen.  That's what people don't get.  He's been stuck with these Sousa types when what he needs is Miles Davis.  Yup, I just compared McHale to Miles Davis.  

 

D-Mo is going to get minutes--there is zero concern there.  He'll be fine and we'll be better for it with him playing a big role for our bench.

 

Ariza will be fine.  The coaches will set him right, and playing a few less minutes per game won't hurt either.  I think he is forcing his threes and rushing them (just a bit).  The good part is teams have to respect his shot which makes the spacing for Harden, Howard, and D-Mo better.

 

Oh, by the way....Josh Smith is shooting 57% on corner threes this season.  (that is only on 7 attempts so grain of salt)

 

The bottom line is this guy, before his reputation went down the drain, was arguably the closest thing to LeBron James the league had.  I think in a healthy environment and surrounded by talent we will see that guy again.  He's wired differently than LBJ, but the talent is there.  This Houston team entered the season good....now we are ridiculously good.

[Red94]

There's negatives about Smith, but I don't know why the Pistons waiving him like this is being cited.  That doesn't have the same meaning as it sounds rhetorically, considering the circumstances.  It was a unique situation where they were better off purging the mistake.  

[clydesmoustache]

Scola was a cancer or we needed to go in a different direction seeing that 9th and 10th position was getting old. My point is people get waived as strategy as well. I feel sorry for Smith. When he signed with Detroit at the time it was a bit of a head scratcher. He must have believed he could play sf. I think if any situstion in detroit sounds cancerous it would be monroe or Jennings saying to the media that they dont practice shooting.Luckily for us Smith has been given ample evidence that he should stick to his strengths and he will be surrounded by his friend and a veteran leadership group. GO ROCKETS! 

 

Also i agree about Arizas threes (slow down) would love to see him take a few in the corners to get some confidence back.

[rockets best fan]

@JG

I was in totally agreement till you got to that McHale/Miles Davis part  the key IMO is Josh playing within his strengths. can the coaching staff keep the train on the tracks? if yes........he will raise the overall ceiling for this team. if no........he will become the Cancer he was in Detroit. Smith has talent, there's no question in my mind about that, but to deny he's a knuckle head would be viewing him through rose colored glasses. considering the low risk for us based on the environment and conditions we have acquired him under it's a no brainer IMO, but the jury is still out on how well he will jell with this team. the jury is also still out on weather the coaching staff can coral his ego. he does have a history of creating unrest when he doesn't get his way. will that be different here? only time will tell, but we couldn't ask for a better low risk gamble with such high return

[Steven]

21 and 8 in 32 minutes in Memphis with only a shoot around for practice. Decent start for the ketchup and mustards.

[Jatman20]

Just one game, but it looks like the Atlanta Josh Smith version minus the 1-8 from 3 point land. I wrote earlier that SVG got after him to shoot less from 3 point land (1.3 attempts from 3 this season). The Rockets can live with 2 attempts per game. I would prefer they be from the corners though.

[Sir Thursday]

I really liked how the Rockets used Smith in his first game. It was clear they are following the very sensible mantra of 'only use him as a power forward', which is a very healthy strategy decision.

He was usually catching the ball in the high post area and getting to the rim. What was encouraging was the way he was able to do this against both big and small defenders. The absence of ZBo helped, obviously, but he was too quick for Jon Leuer and too strong for Carter and Prince. He has always been the prototypical example of a matchup nightmare - he and Carmelo are the faces that launched a thousand doomed tweener ships. Right from the get go he's showing why that is.

The other thing I liked was his reaction when things get tight. At one point his man (Carter) dropped in a three pointer and Smith was visibly annoyed. I knew he was going to have an impact on the next play as a result, but I wasn't sure if it would be good or bad - some players get worse when they get too hyped. He came down on the next possession and grabbed two crucial offensive boards, the second of which he ripped straight from Carter's hands. The early signs are that he is someone who plays better when the competitive juices are flowing, which is something the Rockets should find valuable.

My concern with Smith was whether he could curb his shot selection issues enough to be helpful. There were still some problems with that last night. He had a fairly egregious long two at one point, there was a late game possession where he went ISO that went badly wrong, he airballed a three pointer and generally looked unconvincing when attempting a traditional back-to-the-basket postup. But he showed enough awareness and willingness to pass ( there was one gorgeous kick-out to the corner he did that made me rewind my stream to figure out how the hell he managed it) that I'm willing to believe it's possible to fix over time. It's only one game, but he's looking good so far!

ST

[NorEastern]

I have not re-watched the game last night yet, but honestly I saw little that I disliked. The best thing IMHO was the 48 points the bench scored. It has been a long while since Houston's bench scored that many points.

 

Smith honestly was a very pleasant surprise. Watching the game I got the impression that Smith did whatever was needed to get the Rockets the win. I knew Smith would fit in just fine, but I expected it to take a couple of weeks to integrate him into the roster. I obviously under estimated the man.Smith obviously understands NBA basketball and while there were issues with his play he fit right into the defensive and offensive schemes. Smith obviously is not a low IQ player. And he will get much better as he begins to better understand his team mates and the systems.

 

Unfortunately the Rockets got away from feeding D-Mo in the post. D-Mo is the second most reliable scoring threat on the Rockets and he got all of four shots. A 4/6/2/2 line is just a waste of a lot of talent.

 

I honestly do not know where Howard was last night. However, to his credit he hit four! critical free throws in a row. It honestly may take Howard more time to integrate with Smith than it takes Smith to integrate into the Rockets. But it was just one game, and one game does not a trend make.

 

I have been asking myself since the Smith acquisition if there is any team in the NBA that can hang with the Rockets. One day Jones is coming back and a bench of D-Mo, Jones, Papa, Brewer and Canaan is a load. I would love to see a whole scale mass substitution of the bench for the starters. The moment that happens we will know that the Rockets have arrived. And I am certain that no team has the athleticism and the talent to hang with Houston's starting five. This is certainly the most talented Rockets team since their first championship. Hell, it could be the best Rockets team ever. I know, blasphemy.

 

Practices, film, games and thought are going to make this Rockets team much better than the one we saw last night. It is a great time to be a Rockets fan. Best to everyone. Enjoy!

[bboley24]

We were loading up the speculation thread of J Smith.  I figured id start a thread focusing on recent productions.

I am far from a stat guy like the most of you but I was a bit discouraged by his "hero ball" tactics down the stretch.  We have the greatest late game player in the league; He has to know that.

Here is a great quote from an ESPN article:

"Josh Smith leading HOU in FGA in his first game is like getting invited over for dinner and just drinking orange juice out of the carton."

[Cooper]

Part of why he got so many shots is Dwight couldn't do anything against gasol, I'd expect on most nights both howard and smith both would be closer to 10-15 attempts.

[Losthief]

yeah i agree cooper, based of what i remember not many of his shots came early in the shotclock (which is what i count as bad shot selection) if your forced to shoot at the end of a shotclock/create when its running down I don't hold that against you. That said, the early long 2 was bad by that measure, but both 3s came either at the end of the 1/2 or at the end of the clock/play, so no worries there.

 

Thing I liked the most was dwight coming out to run pick and roll and with josh, im excited by that development and hopes it gets polished as I think that could be deadly with smith's passing abilities and three shooters spacing around them.

[frank1982]

definately a matchup situation, he had Vince Carter guarding him and Tony Allen guarding Harden. Had to look at but I understand why they let him shoot so much.

[Jatman20]

Rule of thumb with big men on offense, "when your man leaves you to help defend another, roll to the (preferably front of) rim.....good things will happen." This is something that Parsons did early in his career; but I would get frustrated when Terrence, D-Mo couldn't figure it out. They seemed to be in love with European style of 4's just shooting the long-ball. Even Asik sometimes would move too slowly and struggled with vice-grip hands. Josh in game one understands attacking the rim, "is good!" Hope Josh doesn't revert back to the Josh that just wants to shoot jump shots and shy away from contact. One shoot-around I believe McHale allowed Josh to play under a long leash. McHale has said he needs to learn what Josh can do best and then try to place in those spots within our scheme......hope it registers how we frown on mid-range and "his 3-pointers outside the corners." I don't mind Josh shooting 10-feet and in since his percentage is very high for his career.

[bboley24]

All im saying is, BENCH Josh Smith in the last 3 minutes of every game or at least on offensive possessions and we will get the maximum ability out of the guy.

[Steven]

All im saying is, BENCH Josh Smith in the last 3 minutes of every game or at least on offensive possessions and we will get the maximum ability out of the guy.

It was Smith's drive and layup in between Carter's two threes, that had the Rockets only down two for Harden's drive to tie it at 104. Let's give it a month before we decide who should be the 5 to finish a game.

[redfaithful]

"The 5 to finish a game" depend a lot on the game itself - matchups, who's having a good night and so on. Setting it in stone is not the smartest thing to do.

[txtdo1411]

"The 5 to finish a game" depend a lot on the game itself - matchups, who's having a good night and so on. Setting it in stone is not the smartest thing to do.

 

This. There are players that are always going to be on the court at the end of the game for teams regardless of how they have been performing that game (Harden, Curry, Durant, Westbrook, Gasol, etc.). But outside of your top 2 guys, it should be match-up based. Smith was clearly the best big we had last night. I don't care how "inefficient" it was, by watching the game it was easy to tell. He was being aggressive, slashing to the rim when Harden was posting up (btw I would love to see them develop this action more), and had some good passes. The reason he finished last night's game was because he was the best matchup we had at the time. Carter and Prince were getting bullied, and Leuer couldn't stay in front of him to save his life.

 

Smith's first game was a resounding success. He didn't have the best shooting night, but he did everything else really well. His defense, in my opinion, will be even better after some time with the team as well. I think offensively Smith is going to feast in that slasher role next to Harden. It is crazy how good "role players"   can look when playing with a talent like Harden, and I think Josh is going to benefit greatly as well. 

Edited by txtdo1411, 27 December 2014 - 10:58 PM.

[Losthief]

Josh smith was a +15 (2nd on the team to Ariza) last night, DMO/Howard were a -2...and that was the big rotation. So for Josh to be a plus 15 despite the guys he was sharing the rotation with being -2 overall each, means the minutes DMO/Howard played together were much worse than -2. If you go by plus/minus for the game 4 out of our top 5 game performers finished the game (harden, ariza, pat, smith) with Howard being the odd man out (joey dorsey was a net zero). So....all i think mchale did was go with the hot/effective hand for that game which is good and what the good teams do.