Do Smith and Jennings care?

[Damon_3388]

If Smith came off the bench, and played the PF slot, he would excel.

Sorry zeeb but I have to disagree with this. The notion that Smith's problems would disappear being a PF are a fallacy.

Smith has had plenty of time at PF this year. He has not excelled. Someone put up shot charts for when Smith played PF vs SF. They were nearly identical.

Even defensively he hasn't played that great -- regardless of position. You can argue he has good physical tools but the results are what they are.

I do agree with you on one thing though: He should definitely be coming off the bench.

If Basketball Reference is to be believed, Smith has played more time at small forward this year (56% of his minutes) than he has since the 2006-07 season, his third year in the league. The six seasons in between saw him play nearly 82% of his minutes at power forward. He hasn't actually been a small forward since his first few years in the league, and we're simply playing him in a role that he's not familiar with and that he's not good at.

[whitehops]

I don't think it's a matter of not caring. I've played ball with quite a few guys that cared a ton about winning, but that didn't stop them from over-dribbling or being a one-dimensional shooters that didn't play defense.

I think it's more a matter of understanding. I find that guys like Jennings and smith can find out what works any one play but fail to see the bigger picture (what works on a consistent basis). I think that partly comes down to coaching.

i'm pretty sure smith thinks any jumpshot that he takes when he is open is a good jumpshot for the team, and I know Jennings feels good about taking step-backs.

[MrBigShot]

Iam pretty sure jennings and more so smith know how they look to the fans and outside the NBA.Has anyone thought maybe gores,dumars,loyer has told smith to keep shooting.No one knows whats going on behind the scenes and it might be a case of smith following orders since besides jennings, smith is the only one on the starting unit (as of now) that can hit shoots out to the 3 (even if he stinks).Singler has been starting for 4-5 games and even tho he is better than smith he isnt all worldly.Ive heard the argument 100 times that he was the same way in atlanta,but he was also a more productive and well rounded player also.

All iam saying is we dont know whats going on behind the scenes.

I doubt that anyone is actually encouraging him to shoot threes right now. He's garbage from downtown. 23% this year and 27% for his career. But I also don't think anyone is -discouraging- him to shoot threes, which is a problem. That's why I'm so high on Lionel Hollins; he'd come in here and stop letting guys do whatever they want.

I do agree that JSmoove was a better player in Atlanta though. He's never been this bad with this much volume. Imo, his best year was 09-10. 16/9/4/2 on over 50% shooting with a grand total of only 7 threes attempted. He's a much better player when the 3pt shot is not apart of his game.

[ChipButty]

If Smith came off the bench, and played the PF slot, he would excel.

Sorry zeeb but I have to disagree with this. The notion that Smith's problems would disappear being a PF are a fallacy.

Smith has had plenty of time at PF this year. He has not excelled. Someone put up shot charts for when Smith played PF vs SF. They were nearly identical.

Even defensively he hasn't played that great -- regardless of position. You can argue he has good physical tools but the results are what they are.

I do agree with you on one thing though: He should definitely be coming off the bench.

That's exactly why I said PF, and off the bench. He absolutely would excel if both of those requirments were met.

I agree that if we could get Smith to come off the bench, we'd be in better shape. I still think Smith/Moose/Dre has the makings of a strong front court rotation, although it's not going to work unless somebody is willing to come off the bench.

I saw Smith's shot charts, but I'm not sure where the data was from and unless I'm mistaken the charts only showed shot attempts and not what the results of the shots were. I find it hard to believe that Smith isn't more effective at PF when he's being guarded by a slower PF and there are less bodies between him and the basket.

Defensively, I don't think Smith is the problem. While looking for stats that show this, I came across this.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/tea ... 14/on-off/
Maybe they care more than we think. WTF?

[Billl]

I think it definitely unfair to question whether they care.

Jennings clearly cares and he's coachable. He's obviously still got flaws in this game, but he's gone from a straight out chucker to a #6 in assists.

Smith cares, but he's low key, so he's never going to be the rah-rah leader. The problem is that his basketball IQ is horrible. He's frequently out of position on both ends. That was to be expected with a position change to start the season, but we're 50 games in now and he still doesn't make the right rotations consistently. It might take him years to figure it out.

[imagump1313]

Everyone wants to win.
Understanding what it takes to win and doing it is a different story. It also helps if someone is pushing you in the right direction and putting you in situations where you can succeed. None of that is happening here with these coaches. Just roll the ball out and do whatever should be the motto of this franchise.