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I haven't watch a lot of Wolves games this season, so I figured I ask you this question.
What are your thoughts on Craig Smith? Have you seen some improvement from his previous season? Does he bring positive influence to your team?

biggest improvement I've seen is that he can drive now and even change direction with his dribble

but if he keeps abusing people with that, they'll just play off of him because his J still needs work

overall, he's one of our few scoring threats and is a great finisher considering his height

A novelty player - he can be effective in limited minutes but if he is overused his limitations quickly leave him and the team exposed.

T-Mac United wrote:I haven't watch a lot of Wolves games this season, so I figured I ask you this question.
What are your thoughts on Craig Smith? Have you seen some improvement from his previous season? Does he bring positive influence to your team?

Second coming of Magic Johnson. Sun Yue's got nothing on him.

Cookie could drink your milkshake.

If he adds the jumper he could make a transistion to SF. Defensively it would be a nightmare, but offensively it could be interesting. Improved Ball handling and passing. He finishes well and plays with a ton of energy. I see him focusing more on the rebounding and as being an offensive threat this year. I have been very impressed. Best case spot would be as a back up high scoring 4 next to a defensive 5.

( He reminds me of Anthony Mason with his new ball-handling skills. )

Craig Smith is an interesting player. He has tremendous quickness, and seems to be able to use it to score against almost any larger opponent down low. He was 18 PTS - 8 RBS yesterday against Bynum and a tall Pau Gasol. He is very strong as well, and he's willing to use that muscle against opposing players. However, he's not tall, so he needs a big center behind him that can help on defense. He was named a Top Ten rookie in his first year playing alongside KG, who's a great help defender. However, right now the Wolves have no players who fit that description, so he'd be more useful to another team. He's on a great contract ($2.5 mil, $2.3 mil), and he becomes eligible to be traded today, and I expect we may see it, since MIN has so many other options at PF. Smith has a good, competitive attitude -- I've never heard a single negative thing about him.

Smith has been playing like our second best player. If he played 36 minutes he'd probably average 18/10 per game.

Yet for some reason I can't wait to trade him. Smith for Kleiza anyone?

since hes started Smith has been going really well avg 14.5 ppg and almost 6 rebounds

Craig Smith is a warrior. He doesn't have a reliable jumper, he is really short, not a great defensive player although he does give effort. Still, with all of his deficiencies he is a great role player. Craig Smith is aggressive, he's fearless. He goes at players that are much bigger than he is and he routinely scores on him. He attained this skill, growing up.

He often played against older kids and he was extremely disappointed that he couldn't player well against them because they were bigger. He developed a series of floater and lay up skill to combat this and they have served him very well throughout his career.

As others have said, Craig Smith is deceptively quick. He isn't the fastest runner on the floor but his quickness in contained areas is impressive. This season he seems faster to me. He seems like a better ball handler and better conditioned. Getting that jumper will be key for him in the future.

Another strength of Craig Smith is that he gets to the FT line. He really doesn't have a problem finishing at the hoop and I think he frustrates bigs with his smaller size. He loses players who are trying to guard him and then they end up fouling him out of frustration or lack of quickness.

I think in theory Cookie could guard most 3's, due to his deceptive quickness. He also has absurd reach for his height if I remember correctly. I think he could do a decent job of guarding the bigger 3's or at least do a similar jobs when compared to gomes.

Craig Smith is more than a bit player or a novelty guy. Just how much more is uncertain, but he's at the very least a potentially valuable role player. If he gets 25 or so minutes a night, he'll score double digits on good percentages and grab 5 or 6 boards, along with getting to the line. Tht has value no matter what happens on the defensive side of the ball, where he's good for a couple deflections/steals a game, but not much else.

I like that he's been given more freedom off the bounce now. He played a lot of point guard in high school, it's nice to see he's retained some of those skills (being in better shape has helped in this area, too). I like him at PF more than SF, because it makes better use of his ability to find openings in the lane and finish high percentage shots. I like how McHale's using him.

As for trading him, I'm against it. We've still got a couple young guys learning the ropes a bit at PG, and having a guy like Craig Smith is like a young QB having a good, reliable tight end in football. He finds seems in the defense, converts opportunities, and generally makes things a bit easier for the QB/PG. We may have other options at PF, but we only have two big men that can reliably create offense right now, Cookie and Big Al. Love is nice on energy buckets and kickouts, and he's shown some intriguing ability off the boiunce, but he isn't reliable yet. Cookie's still growing as a player, and Al/Cookie/Love is a pretty decent primary big man rotation. If we take Cookie out of it we'll be very vulnerable to foul trouble and place even more of a scoring burden on a set of perimeter players that hasn't shown much sign of being up to that task.

Thanks for the input guys. I didn't expect to receive such high quality posts. Despite having a smaller fan base (at least on realgm), your board has plenty of intelligent posters. Your responses provided a tremendous amount of information.

As for Craig Smith, I knew him when he was college and I've always admired his game. Like you said, his height is his worst enemy and it was the reason why I didn't expect his game to translate into the NBA. But height isn't everything. It's well-known that he has a good work ethic, a good heart, and a passion for the game. With those positive attributes, I hope he continues to thrive as a player and mature with the rest of his teammates.

I wish I can catch some Wolves games in the future. Not only because of Smith, but there's just a lot of talent on this team.

I like Craig Smith's game, and I think it'd be a mistake for the Wolves to part with him, especially if the wiretap article is true and you're looking to entice some big name free agents in 2010.

T-Mac United wrote:Thanks for the input guys. I didn't expect to receive such high quality posts. Despite having a smaller fan base (at least on realgm), your board has plenty of intelligent posters. Your responses provided a tremendous amount of information.

Hey Now, We aren't THAT small. I mean look at the Hornets, Thunder, or Grizzlies board. Aside from the big market teams, we got a decent size in here. A good mix of posters.

I like what I am seeing from Smith. McHale is bringing the best out of him, and if nothing else, this improves his trade stock. Offensively I hope that Love picks up on some of Craig's techniques.

horaceworthy wrote:Craig Smith is more than a bit player or a novelty guy. Just how much more is uncertain, but he's at the very least a potentially valuable role player. If he gets 25 or so minutes a night, he'll score double digits on good percentages and grab 5 or 6 boards, along with getting to the line. Tht has value no matter what happens on the defensive side of the ball, where he's good for a couple deflections/steals a game, but not much else.

I'm still not convinced - he is playing well on offense in a sense, that is he is scoring ok. But much like Jefferson, he doesn't improve the play of the team much since he doesn't pass the ball. It's good to have a strong one-on-one player, but that's not enough to make you a strong offensive player. On the defensive side of the floor he is a disaster, especially when he's asked to play the center position. His offense cannot make up for his defense. He has value, but only in very limited minutes.

To his credit he's a hard worker, he seems to be one of the few players taking advantage of the lackadaisical approach other teams have to the wolves. This has helped his numbers, but it doesn't mean he is an effective player.