Pistons tried hard to sell Josh at Deadline

[ComboGuardCity]

A couple of things.

First, I think the defense issue can be solved by better coaching. It's not like these guys are not athletes. Good team defense is about rotations, and trying take away your opponents sweet spots. A good coach will teach this, and practice it, and continue to prioritize it. And most importantly, will NOT give playing time to those that are not playing good D. A good strong coach is what we need.

Secondly, everyone is tradeable. I agree that trading Smith would be a challenge, but there are opportunities for sure. Especially capped out teams like New York (as mentioned) and Brooklyn. They don't give a damn about luxury taxes, and if Smith is more talented than someone on their team, they are candidates to make a trade.

Last but not least, I think Smith is talented, but needs to be on the right team. If he was PF for the Warriors, he would be awesome. They spread the floor so well, that would totally open up the paint for him, and there is no way they would be letting him near the 3 point line. Maybe trade him for David Lee? At least we'd get back someone who knows their role, although we'd still have two PFs. Maybe a 3 way trade? I just know our big 3 was taking a home run swing and we missed, and now we need to fix it, and we missed an opportunity at the trade deadline.

Totally agree with every thing you said.

Let's not forget Brandon Jennings was part of a Top 5 defense. A system is more important than the personnel when it comes to team defense. Jennings is probably the only defender incapable of stopping penetration consistently. If you notice, Josh, Drummond, and Monroe aren't getting roasted on iso plays, its the rotations they're getting killed on. If we bring in a guy like Hollins, I'm sure we'd see a top 10 defense.


...With all that said, I'd like to trade both Josh and Brandon.

[simon24]

By NOT moving Smith at the deadline, that means we're tied to his salary next season, whether it is his or someone we trade for. If we would have traded him for expirings before the deadline, we could have had a "do over" this summer. Big mistake.

That article was a plant.

No one offered expiring contracts for Josh Smith.

The best opportunity to unload Smith still remains with NYC.

Name one other team that would be willing to offer anything in exchange for Smith.

Warriors might be another candidate if they flame out in the early rounds or dont make the playoffs all together

Why NYC?

[sc8581]

By NOT moving Smith at the deadline, that means we're tied to his salary next season, whether it is his or someone we trade for. If we would have traded him for expirings before the deadline, we could have had a "do over" this summer. Big mistake.

That article was a plant.

No one offered expiring contracts for Josh Smith.

The best opportunity to unload Smith still remains with NYC.

Name one other team that would be willing to offer anything in exchange for Smith.

Warriors might be another candidate if they flame out in the early rounds or dont make the playoffs all together

Why NYC?

Obviously he means the Knicks but Brooklyn wouldn't surprise me either.

[sfballa13]

By NOT moving Smith at the deadline, that means we're tied to his salary next season, whether it is his or someone we trade for. If we would have traded him for expirings before the deadline, we could have had a "do over" this summer. Big mistake.

That article was a plant.

No one offered expiring contracts for Josh Smith.

The best opportunity to unload Smith still remains with NYC.

Name one other team that would be willing to offer anything in exchange for Smith.

Warriors might be another candidate if they flame out in the early rounds or dont make the playoffs all together

Why NYC?

Why NYC?

Read the Wiretap: "Knicks trying to trade Amare for an equally bad contract like Eric Gordon"

Smith is about 1000000x better and healthier than Eric Gordon was or ever will be.

Melo - Smith - Chandler would be a decent trio for NY and would convince Melo to stay in the Big Apple

Why didnt the Pistons make this trade at the deadline is beyond me? We definitely could have gotten Shumpert for Stuckey-Smith and New York would have been much higher in the standings

[MotownMadness]

That article was a plant.

No one offered expiring contracts for Josh Smith.

The best opportunity to unload Smith still remains with NYC.

Name one other team that would be willing to offer anything in exchange for Smith.

Warriors might be another candidate if they flame out in the early rounds or dont make the playoffs all together

Why NYC?

Why NYC?

Read the Wiretap: "Knicks trying to trade Amare for an equally bad contract like Eric Gordon"

Smith is about 1000000x better and healthier than Eric Gordon was or ever will be.

Melo - Smith - Chandler would be a decent trio for NY and would convince Melo to stay in the Big Apple

[b]Why didnt the Pistons make this trade at the deadline is beyond me? We definitely could have gotten Shumpert for Stuckey-Smith and New York would have been much higher in the standings[/[/b

]quote]

It's possible we didn't want his 20 mil per contract eating up our cap space in the offseason. NY might have offered Amare for Smith. I do remember reading that the Pistons were shopping Smith to get a idea of what they could get for him in the offseason, So maybe this is a trade they have going.

[DBC10]

That article was a plant.

No one offered expiring contracts for Josh Smith.

The best opportunity to unload Smith still remains with NYC.

Name one other team that would be willing to offer anything in exchange for Smith.

Warriors might be another candidate if they flame out in the early rounds or dont make the playoffs all together

Why NYC?

Why NYC?

Read the Wiretap: "Knicks trying to trade Amare for an equally bad contract like Eric Gordon"

Smith is about 1000000x better and healthier than Eric Gordon was or ever will be.

Melo - Smith - Chandler would be a decent trio for NY and would convince Melo to stay in the Big Apple

Why didnt the Pistons make this trade at the deadline is beyond me? We definitely could have gotten Shumpert for Stuckey-Smith and New York would have been much higher in the standings

Melo has said that he is willing to take a paycut to form NY's own big 3 if it comes down to it. The guy is starving for a ring at this point.

I could see NY easily do this since Amare is a corpse of his former self.

[Han Solo]

Smith/Jennings

for Amare/Hardaway Jr.

[sfballa13]

Smith/Jennings

for Amare/Hardaway Jr.

Knicks refused to give up Hardaway Jr for Lowry why would they give him up for Jennings?

We may have very well missed our opportunity to dump Smith.

And as for Amare eating our capspace in the offseason, we could have moved Jerebko/Datome in the deal freeing up another 6M of capspace

Amare, Shumpert for Stuckey, Smith, Jerebko, Datome would have worked and NYC would have said yes bc like someone else mentioned, Melo is desperate to win.

Pretty sure we could have even thrown in Jennings into the deal for Bargnani and Knicks would have bit (even without throwing in Hardaway Jr at least we could have dumped jennings)

But who knows? Here is a tweet from an SI.com article about the 2014 Sloan Conference:
"2 worst NBA players in EPV (points added/subtracted based on decision making): Josh Smith, Brandon Jennings. Poor Pistons."

[ComboGuardCity]

Jennings would've been a beast if he learned under pop. As would have Josh Smtih. Two young guys who developed bad habits at a very young age.