Josh Smith has scored 498 points this year. Greg Monroe 477

[HeroicKennedy]

Josh Smith has attempted 496 shots this year.
Greg Monroe has attempted 381.

Josh has attempted 115 more shots than Greg Monroe this year. It has produced a grand total of 21 more points than Greg Monroe.

In other words, **** Josh Smith. Get this walking cancer a million miles away from this team before it completely kills my love for the Pistons.

[ComboGuardCity]

I'm comboguardcity and I approve this message.






But I'm not saying we give up assets to get rid of him. Back on the get Jeff green bandwagon.

[mercury]

Offense the only consideration?

[HeroicKennedy]

Offense the only consideration?

Josh Smith is a poor defender at the 3, and Greg Monroe currently ranks 11th in defending post-up opportunities.

Monroe is not a perfect player, but he is a much better player than Smith.

[Q00]

yeah, calculate how many pts Monroe has given back on defense and you'll probably find they've both been about equally impactful overall. Some weeks Monroe is good & Smith bad, some Smith good & Monroe bad.

One thing I notice though is it seems like whenever Smith plays good we win. When he doesn't we lose. However whether Monroe plays good or bad seems to have little to no effect on us winning/losing. Its like just empty stats.

So by that I would guess that Smith is actually more valuable to this team, and Monroe the more dispensible one.

Right now obviously neither are playing winning basketball, so its a poor time to compare them and decide which to keep. Based on the last week they should both be gone. But overall I do think Smith has contributed more to wins than Monroe.

[ComboGuardCity]

Offense the only consideration?

Defensively it's not working. So you have to choose between Greg and josh at the 4. Monroe has surprisingly been a decent post defender. He's a terrible help defender as you know. It's really up to Drummond to be that guy.

[OneBadMutha]

Josh was a good post and help defender in Atlanta. Josh at the 4 would upgrade Detroit's defense considerably. He'd also present more of a matchup problem on offense at the 4 than the 3...especially in the open court.

In the end, you're comparing two guys being played out of position. If Drummond is the long term center, then only one of these two can play at their ideal position in Detroit.

We've barely seen the Drummond/Smith combo. When Smith is at the 4, Drummond is usually out of the game. Maybe Cheeks sees something in practice that we don't...or maybe he's just incompetent. I'd love to see that combo on display more often.

[Q00]

Offense the only consideration?

Defensively it's not working. So you have to choose between Greg and josh at the 4. Monroe has surprisingly been a decent post defender. He's a terrible help defender as you know. It's really up to Drummond to be that guy.

There lies the issue. With this team and its poor perimeter on-ball defense, they are always going to need to be a helping defense to cover for Jennings. So its more important to have an athletic help defender like Smith at the 4, than a strictly post defender like Monroe, who can't help and recover in time.

Its too much to ask of Drummond to cover for both Monroe and Jennings at only 20 yrs old when he's still trying figure out how to guard his own man. So I don't think you can put it all on him to cover for everyone. They need someone at PF to help him cover for everyone. Like Ben had Sheed.

[HeroicKennedy]

yeah, calculate how many pts Monroe has given back on defense and you'll probably find they've both been about equally impactful overall. Some weeks Monroe is good & Smith bad, some Smith good & Monroe bad.

One thing I notice though is it seems like whenever Smith plays good we win. When he doesn't we lose. However whether Monroe plays good or bad seems to have little to no effect on us winning/losing. Its like just empty stats.

So by that I would guess that Smith is actually more valuable to this team, and Monroe the more dispensible one.

First off, don't make claims that Monroe "gives back" as many points on defense without some actual evidence. It's a hollow claim based on weak eye-tests where people want things to fit preconceived notions about a player. In terms of points per possession, Josh Smith is surrendering .95 PPP, good enough for 286th in the league. Greg Monroe is .86 PPP, which puts him 162nd. In other words, the notion that Greg Monroe is some ridiculous defensive sieve that surrenders points a whim is a meme that does not stand up under scrutiny.

Also, you seem to misunderstand the concept of consistency. Greg Monroe's stats do not vary in wins and losses is not evidence of "hollow" stats. Spoilers: LeBron James' stats do not vary between wins and losses. Kevin Durant's stats do not vary between wins and losses. Unless you're going to assert their stats are "hollow," too. Josh Smith's stats vary largely because he is a toxic shooter. He shoots a lot and in the rare instances where he shoots well, we're more likely to win. There's also the fact that his numbers still suck even WHEN we win, where he's posting a .491 TS% vs. 432 TS%.

I mean, you can BELIEVE that Smith is more valuable than Monroe. Just like you can believe in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. But if you want to follow the actual evidence, Monroe is easily the better player and the one more worth keeping.

[HeroicKennedy]

Josh was a good post and help defender in Atlanta. Josh at the 4 would upgrade Detroit's defense considerably. He'd also present more of a matchup problem on offense at the 4 than the 3...especially in the open court.

Josh Smith has been a poor offensive player his whole career, even at the 4. Last season he was allowed to play the 4 and he still took 581 jumpers out of his 731 shots. He doesn't provide match-up problems because he WANTS to shoot jumpers, and he is a very poor jump shooter. And as he gets older and his athleticism starts to fade he'll just want to shoot more jumpers.

[Q00]

yeah, calculate how many pts Monroe has given back on defense and you'll probably find they've both been about equally impactful overall. Some weeks Monroe is good & Smith bad, some Smith good & Monroe bad.

One thing I notice though is it seems like whenever Smith plays good we win. When he doesn't we lose. However whether Monroe plays good or bad seems to have little to no effect on us winning/losing. Its like just empty stats.

So by that I would guess that Smith is actually more valuable to this team, and Monroe the more dispensible one.

First off, don't make claims that Monroe "gives back" as many points on defense without some actual evidence. It's a hollow claim based on weak eye-tests where people want things to fit preconceived notions about a player. In terms of points per possession, Josh Smith is surrendering .95 PPP, good enough for 286th in the league. Greg Monroe is .86 PPP, which puts him 162nd. In other words, the notion that Greg Monroe is some ridiculous defensive sieve that surrenders points a whim is a meme that does not stand up under scrutiny.

Also, you seem to misunderstand the concept of consistency. Greg Monroe's stats do not vary in wins and losses is not evidence of "hollow" stats. Spoilers: LeBron James' stats do not vary between wins and losses. Kevin Durant's stats do not vary between wins and losses. Unless you're going to assert their stats are "hollow," too. Josh Smith's stats vary largely because he is a toxic shooter. He shoots a lot and in the rare instances where he shoots well, we're more likely to win. There's also the fact that his numbers still suck even WHEN we win, where he's posting a .491 TS% vs. 432 TS%.

I mean, you can BELIEVE that Smith is more valuable than Monroe. Just like you can believe in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus. But if you want to follow the actual evidence, Monroe is easily the better player and the one more worth keeping.

You're forgetting that its a team game. Monroe's help defense is awful. I don't care what advanced stat you come up with that says otherwise. Anyone here that watches can vouche for that. Smith is the better team defender, which is all that matters being that its a team game. Maybe if Monroe were some lockdown individual defender you could justify carrying his lazy ass on defense, but when he's below average at best indiviually, and worse as a team defender, constantly late on rotations, then he's a net negative on defense in my book.

Maybe you can find an advanced stat that measures amount of late defensive rotations and how many lazy half-ass closeouts on contested shots a player has. I bet Monroe would be near the top of the list in both.

And I understand consistency fine. Monroe has consistently put up the same 15-9 for 3 years straight, and we consistently have a losing record every year with him. At some point you have to start questioning him as to why we can't win, and not those around him. And it starts with his defense, which is preventing us from ever being a consistently good team defense because he too slow to react all the time.

Smith has been on winning teams with consistently good defenses. You can't say that Monroe gives you a better chance to win when he's never been on a winning team in his career and Smith has multiple times. Those are the facts, and the one stat that will always override any advanced stat you can come up with, is the win/loss column.

[Q00]

Josh was a good post and help defender in Atlanta. Josh at the 4 would upgrade Detroit's defense considerably. He'd also present more of a matchup problem on offense at the 4 than the 3...especially in the open court.

In the end, you're comparing two guys being played out of position. If Drummond is the long term center, then only one of these two can play at their ideal position in Detroit.

We've barely seen the Drummond/Smith combo. When Smith is at the 4, Drummond is usually out of the game. Maybe Cheeks sees something in practice that we don't...or maybe he's just incompetent. I'd love to see that combo on display more often.

I think there's a good chance we might be seeing the Dre/Smith combo come Sunday. Cheeks has already hinted that he would consider a lineup change over this week. He also already said Smith is staying a starter, and doubtful he wants to revisit benching him again. So that leaves either Monroe or KCP, as I doubt they revert Drummond back to the bench and regress his development. If it were just going to be KCP, it wouldn't take this much thought process to do. Cheeks has no problem benching him 2 seconds into a game. So deductive logic tells me they are about to try Monroe off the bench next game.

We'll see if it happens, but he said before today that if something isn't working he's not going to keep doing it, and after losing today again, I would think he's going to shakeup this lineup now. Its a good time to do it too, because they will have all week to practice the new lineup/rotation.

[triplet1984]

The idea that Smith is an inefficient chucker is not some big surprise. Joe Dumars really likes to have players out of position.

[HeroicKennedy]

You're forgetting that its a team game. Monroe's help defense is awful. I don't care what advanced stat you come up with that says otherwise. Anyone here that watches can vouche for that. Smith is the better team defender, which is all that matters being that its a team game. Maybe if Monroe were some lockdown individual defender you could justify carrying his lazy ass on defense, but when he's below average at best indiviually, and worse as a team defender, constantly late on rotations, then he's a net negative on defense in my book.

Maybe you can find an advanced stat that measures amount of late defensive rotations and how many lazy half-ass closeouts on contested shots a player has. I bet Monroe would be near the top of the list in both.

And while I may slightly agree with you here (Greg is not a strong help defender whereas Smith is), that does not discount the fact that Greg Monroe is better at everything else. Better scorer, better rebounder, arguably better passer. And the fact that Josh Smith is a toxic offensive player that posted a negative offensive win share the past two seasons. If the fact that we need that much more help defense because our perimeter defense is THAT bad, perhaps we should figure out a way to fix the perimeter defense more than keeping an inferior player for the sake of masking it's inabilities.

And I understand consistency fine. Monroe has consistently put up the same 15-9 for 3 years straight, and we consistently have a losing record every year with him. At some point you have to start questioning him as to why we can't win, and not those around him. And it starts with his defense, which is preventing us from ever being a consistently good team defense because he too slow to react all the time.

Of all three players, when playing alone (i.e. without the others) the Pistons posted the best defensive rating with Monroe alone than with Drummond alone or Smith alone. The team CAN be good defensively with Monroe. There is absolutely evidence of it.

Smith has been on winning teams with consistently good defenses. You can't say that Monroe gives you a better chance to win when he's never been on a winning in his career and Smith has multiple times. Those are the facts, and the one stat that will always override any advanced stat you can come up with, is the win/loss column

You mean the Atlanta team currently on pace for 45 wins? That's posting a similar defensive rating as the Hawks teams that had Smith? That hasn't skipped a beat since losing Smith despite Smith's ability to "bring the wins."

You know that assigning the Hawks success to Smith like basketball is an individual sport is incredibly flawed. Ben Wallace was on a 32 win Piston team. He was also on a 64 win Piston team. It's almost as if you need a great "team" to get decent production, and assigning blame for an entire team's failures on one player is a ridiculous concept.

You know why the team can't win with Greg Monroe? Because he has two clowns on his team shooting almost 31 shots and scoring a slightly over 33 points. That our team is built around two inefficient chuckers who we have to hope have "one of those games" where their overshooting works and we'll somehow win that way. Meanwhile, an efficient player like Monroe is rendered seventh in shot attempts per 36. Did you know that without Smith and Jenning's shot attempts, the Pistons would rank 3rd in FG% this season? Do you know where they currently rank? 13th. You replace Smith at the 3 with a capable defender that can knock down an outside jumper and the team improves significantly because you get a player that's good offensively and what you need defensively. Convince Jennings to stop the hero ball and focus on running the offense (which he's more capable than anyone in recent memory save Calderon) and you've got a better team.

[Q00]

^hmmm...so why couldn't Monroe win last year without them, or the year before, or the year before, etc etc

Sorry but Monroe has never been on a winning team no matter who is around him, and there's no way around that fact. And you misintrepeted my point about Smith on Atlanta. I never said he was solely responsible for their winning. I said it was proof that you could field a winning team featuring him. The same can be said about Jennings in Milwaukee. How did both of those teams manage to field winning teams with them if its impossible to win with them like you claim?

Maybe if both were career losers or something, then you could blame them for us not winning, but when both have won elsewhere and Monroe is the one who hasn't, I think you are pointing blame in the wrong direction. To be clear, I'm not saying Jennings and Smith don't deserve equal blame for us losing, but you can't say that they are preventing us from ever winning because they've proven they can be part of winning teams. Monroe has not.

For what its worth Jennings is light years better than Calderon at running our offense. This team was beyond bad with Calderon last year.

[Q00]

Oh and your stat about us being the best on defense with Monroe over the others, just how good are we talking here? Because our defense has been pretty bad all year, so its hard to believe we have posted any kind of impressive defensive numbers period, let alone with Monroe as the catalyst. So if its just that he's somehow ranked the best of our bad defense, I don't see how that proves we can be a great defense with him.

[ComboGuardCity]

This heroic Kennedy guy really knows his stuff. Please stick around!

[HeroicKennedy]

^hmmm...so why couldn't Monroe win last year without them, or the year before, or the year before, etc etc

Sorry but Monroe has never been on a winning team no matter who is around him, and there's no way around that fact. And you misintrepeted my point about Smith on Atlanta. I never said he was solely responsible for their winning. I said it was proof that you could field a winning team featuring him. The same can be said about Jennings in Milwaukee. How did both of those teams manage to field winning teams with them if its impossible to win with them like you claim?

Maybe if both were career losers or something, then you could blame them for us not winning, but when both have won elsewhere and Monroe is the one who hasn't, I think you are pointing blame in the wrong direction. To be clear, I'm not saying Jennings and Smith don't deserve equal blame for us losing, but you can't say that they are preventing us from ever winning because they've proven they can be part of winning teams. Monroe has not.

For what its worth Jennings is light years better than Calderon at running our offense. This team was beyond bad with Calderon last year.

Kevin Love has never been on a winning team despite being a highly productive player. Sometimes you're stuck on a bad team. Kevin Garnett (who we will agree was a great defender) missed the playoffs in roughly half his years in Minnesota. He joins Boston and never missed the playoffs. Almost as if the biggest determinant is not ONE individual but rather how the whole team is built. You keep thinking Monroe is the reason that we haven't made the playoffs, when look at the quality of his teammates:

Broken Knee Tracy McGrady
Jason Maxiell
Will Bynum
Rodney Stuckey
Charlie Villanueva
Ben Gordon
Austin Daye
Broken Down Richard Hamilton
Broken Down Tayshaun Prince
Chris Wilcox
Brandon Knight
Broken Down Corey Maggette

Now, who in the hell not named LeBron James could lead teams featuring these players as key contributors to the playoffs? On the flipside, Atlanta's starting line-up featured Jeff Teague, Al Horford, and Kyle Korver, all quality NBA starters.

Let's just swap Monroe and Smith from their 2012-2013 starting lineups:

The Pistons:
Brandon Knight
Kyle Singler
Tayshaun Prince
Josh Smith
Jason Maxiell

The Hawks:
Jeff Teague
DeShawn Stevenson
Kyle Korver
Greg Monroe
Al Horford

And you keep wanting to claim than Monroe is holding the team back? Do you SEE that first lineup? Is that lineup making the playoffs? Probably not. And the latter team is going to make the playoffs.

Quit this "They can't win with Monroe" narrative. It's absolutely 100% ridiculous. You want to have a debate about the merits of Smith vs. Monroe I'm more than willing, but Monroe's teammates have SUCKED in the prior 3 seasons. Smith couldn't carry them to the playoffs. LeBron would struggle to carry them to the playoffs. Monroe should absolutely not be blamed for being a part of **** teams and not being able to carry **** teams to the playoffs.

Oh, and here's this:



The defensive rating is the best with Monroe only as is the offensive rating. I will gladly admit it's small sample size thanks to it being limited minutes, so I wouldn't discern much other than it's A possibility.

[Q00]

That's too many "ifs" for me, sorry. Reality is reality. When Monroe has a winning season anywhere, let me know.

Though I'm curious to know why Monroe wouldn't bring his same defensive issues with him to Atlanta and slow down their defense as well?

Also, it doensn't make sense for you to say Monroe couldn't win last year because of our lack of talent, yet at the same say that if Smith/Jennings were gone, we could be winning with Monroe right now.

If Smith/Jennings are gone, aren't we basically back to the same team we were last year, that you admit wasn't good enough to win? Not only that, but minus Tayshaun, Knight, Middelton, Maxiell too

Do you really think if this was our rotation instead that we would be a better team right now?

Stuckey/Bynum
KCP/Billups
Singler/Datome
Monroe/Jerebko
Drummond/Harrellson

That team would be worse than last year, sorry.

As for that defensive chart. You're right its a possibility, bu a very small one at that. Because unless you are only planning on playing Monroe that small amount of minutes, then it proves nothing as far as being able to be a fulltime great defense with him. Any player can play good defense in spurts. That's Monroes problem. He only does it in spurts and not consistently throughout entire games

[HeroicKennedy]

I really shouldn't bother when it starts with this:

That's too many "ifs" for me, sorry. Reality is reality. When Monroe has a winning season anywhere, let me know.

You know Ben Wallace didn't make the playoffs until his 6th year in the league. Guess he was a career loser that the Pistons should have stayed away from and gotten Horace Grant in the Grant Hill deal, huh? This is such terrible logic I don't know why I should respond to anything else.

Though I'm curious to know why Monroe wouldn't bring his same defensive issues with him to Atlanta and slow down their defense as well?

Slow down their defense? The likelihood that Monroe would have significant enough impact on Atlanta's overall defense is pretty low. And any impact is offset by replacing Smith's terrible shooting with Monroe's highly efficient post-play plus Greg's superior rebounding. Actually, since Atlanta just replaced Smith with a slightly more range-y Monroe (Paul Millsap) and the team has suffered very little defensively while improving offensively, I'd say we can basically see what Monroe looks like on the Hawks.

Also, it doensn't make sense for you to say Monroe couldn't win last year because of our lack of talent, yet at the same say that if Smith/Jennings were gone, we could be winning with Monroe right now.

I want Smith gone because he is a net negative player who is actively hurting the Pistons due to high shot volume low percentage points and rather poor perimeter defense (which isn't his fault, it's Dumars' fault for signing a 4 to play the 3). Jennings does have more to give to the team, as he is significantly better at running the point than Brandon Knight (who is a terrible PG) and I believe with some proper shot selection and control Jennings can be a decent point guard. However, last year's team and this year's team are two completely different monsters in terms of production of returning players and who's gone.

If Smith/Jennings are gone, aren't we basically back to the same team we were last year, that you admit wasn't good enough to win? Not only that, but minus Tayshaun, Knight, Middelton, Maxiell too

Three of the four players you listed ranked among the worst at their respective starting positions. Prince, Knight, and Maxiell posted WS48 of .065, .022, and .047 respectively. They were not only not missed, but the Pistons ridding themselves of these players was a good thing. The last player mentioned was a seldom used bench player. He's largely irrelevant.

Do you really think if this was our rotation instead that we would be a better team right now?

Stuckey/Bynum
KCP/Billups
Singler/Datome
Monroe/Jerebko
Drummond/Harrellson

Better than the team right now? Debatable only because I have zero trust in Stuckey's ability to run an offense significantly. Ideally, I wanted to retain Jose Calderon as he had the second best assist-to-turnover ratio in the NBA and is a better PG than Jennings (and more efficient shooter). But the biggest difference between that squad and the previous year's squad would be the insertion of Andre Drummond into the lineup, giving him 30+ minutes a game, and replacing Maxiell's paltry production. That alone could account for an additional 5-6 wins this year. There's also that, for whatever reason, Kyle Singler has morphed from a fringe 8th-9th man player who started for no particular reason to arguably a starting caliber SF. His TS% jumped from .517 to .610 while reducing his turnover rate and nearly doubling his free throw rate. We're talking a jump .048 WS48 to .120. Replacing Smith's unproductive, overshooting tendencies with Singler's ability to play within the offense alone I think would account for an extra win or two, and the difference between Singler and Smith's perimeter defense is very unnoticeable so I doubt much would be lost there.

Do I think that roster right there would be better than the current roster? Ehhhhh, I'd lean no, but only because of Stuckey. I'll take Jennings over Stuckey as starting PG. The rest? Fine and dandy, though. Smith has 20 games this year where he has failed to score more points than he's taken shots. Those are actively hurting the team more than anything, especially when he averages nearly 15 shots a game. That level of inefficiency blows and any team trying to win with that as their first option is going to not do well.