Serious question: How many ppg/rpg would Josh Smith have had if he played with Trae Young

[thecampster]

No knee jerks on this. Take your time and consider the question.

Would Trae have made Josh better or worse?

[hawkman]

10 minutes ago, thecampster said:

No knee jerks on this. Take your time and consider the question.

Would Trae have made Josh better or worse?

Better. Trae loves lob threats and will pass ahead to bigs who run the floor on the break. 

[NBASupes]

Trae would request a trade by the end of the year. 

[JayBirdHawk]

Ideally, if we got the best of the Josh we all wanted to see - it would be special, but man....his propensity to go off script would make Trae lose whatever hair he has left.

[Diesel]

Josh Smith had that tick.  He played with good PGs.  Bibby is no slouch.   The problem is that Josh tick made him bring the ball up after a rebound and try to initiate the offense.   Then he would have tried to splash the open three that the team gave him. 

This is what would have happened:   Trae would have stopped passing him the ball.  Trae would have froze him out.   We have that issue with Trae now.  He freezes out guys who miss open shots continuously.  Trae's biggest issue is not his defense ... it's "Always" trusting his teammates.

 

 

 

[JayBirdHawk]

3 minutes ago, Diesel said:

The problem is that Josh tick made him bring the ball up after a rebound and try to initiate the offense.

I closed by my eyes when he did that....I still have nightmares from the game when he tried a half court pass and hit the back board, not once, but twice in one game. 

[Final_quest]

My first reaction that Trae would make most guys better, but he and Josh kind of operate in the same space with the ball. 

Josh Smith in Collins role as a shooter is not ideal.  He would have to be the role partner and lob threat.  Josh was a lot better at passing and shot creation than any of our bigs right now.  He would bring a lot of the same things we see in Jalen and that is pretty disruptive.  I see him getting a rebound, immediately pushing the ball, and creating a play.  Hoping Jalen becomes a much better shooter than Josh.    

[NBASupes]

7 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

My first reaction that Trae would make most guys better, but he and Josh kind of operate in the same space with the ball. 

Josh Smith in Collins role as a shooter is not ideal.  He would have to be the role partner and lob threat.  Josh was a lot better at passing and shot creation than any of our bigs right now.  He would bring a lot of the same things we see in Jalen and that is pretty disruptive.  I see him getting a rebound, immediately pushing the ball, and creating a play.  Hoping Jalen becomes a much better shooter than Josh.    

Josh would be tremendous in that 6th man role playing next to Bey but hell no as a starter. 

[Phunkabilly]

23 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

My first reaction that Trae would make most guys better, but he and Josh kind of operate in the same space with the ball. 

Josh Smith in Collins role as a shooter is not ideal.  He would have to be the role partner and lob threat.  Josh was a lot better at passing and shot creation than any of our bigs right now.  He would bring a lot of the same things we see in Jalen and that is pretty disruptive.  I see him getting a rebound, immediately pushing the ball, and creating a play.  Hoping Jalen becomes a much better shooter than Josh.    

The comparison of Josh to JJ is immediately what came to my mind as well. Very similar games, both good and bad. Whereas JJ can be too unconfident at times, it seemed like Josh was waaaayyy too overconfident though. I was always hopeful that Josh's game would mature and he would become a great "do it all" type of player, but sadly that never happened. I have now projected my unrealistic hopes onto JJ that he'll one day become that player.

[Final_quest]

3 hours ago, Phunkabilly said:

The comparison of Josh to JJ is immediately what came to my mind as well. Very similar games, both good and bad. Whereas JJ can be too unconfident at times, it seemed like Josh was waaaayyy too overconfident though. I was always hopeful that Josh's game would mature and he would become a great "do it all" type of player, but sadly that never happened. I have now projected my unrealistic hopes onto JJ that he'll one day become that player.

Josh Smith earned such a bad reputation that it tainted his good years of being a stat stuffer.  He's under appreciated.  Even when he started to shoot too much, he could still have a positive impact on the game with steals, blocks, assists, rebounds, dunks, etc.  Jalen isn't quite on his level yet.  

[hawkman]

3 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

Josh Smith earned such a bad reputation that it tainted his good years of being a stat stuffer.  He's under appreciated.  Even when he started to shoot too much, he could still have a positive impact on the game with steals, blocks, assists, rebounds, dunks, etc.  Jalen isn't quite on his level yet.  

We get excited when JJ shows flashes of things Smoove did on a routine basis. Smoove was an integral part of the '07-'08 team that made the Playoffs and took the Celtics to Game 7. He made some maddening decisions at times, but he had some darn good seasons as an Atlanta Hawk. I never really saw him as a net negative player when he was here. I think both he and Joe were pretty underrated by the fans at times.

[JustSomeGuy]

@Diesel it’s not a bad thing to not pass the ball to guys who aren’t going to do anything good with it. Every great player would say the same thing and in fact Gilbert Arenas said as much on his podcast this week. 

if PGs are your chief decision makers it’s their job to make something GOOD happen with the ball. In Trae’s case there just aren’t many good options when he’s not facilitating. It’s not his job to develop his teammates. 

But the answer the question I think Trae would’ve kept Josh from doing as much dumb stuff with the ball. 

[cam1218]

Trae would have made Josh better for sure in many aspects if Josh was willing to play to his strengths. He is clearly the guy on the team and wouldn’t let Josh take over that role. My concern though is spacing. Josh would still probably try to become the three point shooter he was not to give Trae more room to operate. So it might wind up being a wash in the long run.

[Diesel]

14 hours ago, JustSomeGuy said:

@Diesel it’s not a bad thing to not pass the ball to guys who aren’t going to do anything good with it. Every great player would say the same thing and in fact Gilbert Arenas said as much on his podcast this week. 

if PGs are your chief decision makers it’s their job to make something GOOD happen with the ball. In Trae’s case there just aren’t many good options when he’s not facilitating. It’s not his job to develop his teammates. 

But the answer the question I think Trae would’ve kept Josh from doing as much dumb stuff with the ball. 

I'm not saying that it's a total bad thing to freeze somebody out.   I just noted that with Trae, it happens.  With the understanding that nothing is happening with this player, I am going to go away from him... he also needs to understand that you don't continue to hold that position through halfs or even through different times on the court. 

It's communication.  If Hunter is standing on the three point line missing every thing that is thrown to him, then sure, Trae stop throwing it to Hunter.   But then when we go to time out or if we're subbed out together... Trae as the leader and chief decision maker, go over to Hunter and say.. "You're outside shooting is not there, next time take a few drives and see if you can get the ball in the basket and maybe that will help your shot". 

Because what ends up happening with us if that We go away from a player... and we never go back and we don't communicate the problem (seemingly) and our offense is missing it's firepower because we need that missing element for spacing. 

I've watch DJ come in and pass it to those guys that Trae had went away from and later in the interview talk about trusting your teammates.  It was not a slight, It was just a note...

[Diesel]

15 hours ago, hawkman said:

We get excited when JJ shows flashes of things Smoove did on a routine basis. Smoove was an integral part of the '07-'08 team that made the Playoffs and took the Celtics to Game 7. He made some maddening decisions at times, but he had some darn good seasons as an Atlanta Hawk. I never really saw him as a net negative player when he was here. I think both he and Joe were pretty underrated by the fans at times.

We WISH JJ can be anywhere in the vicinity of Josh Smith in terms of skillset. 

It's not even skillset, I don't know what it is but JJ is not Josh. 

 

 

[Final_quest]

41 minutes ago, Diesel said:

We WISH JJ can be anywhere in the vicinity of Josh Smith in terms of skillset. 

It's not even skillset, I don't know what it is but JJ is not Josh. 

 

 

Hell, what about Hunter?  Josh Smith would average 8 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 blocks, 1.5 steals.  Hunter gives you 4 rebounds and not much else.  

Side question: I never understood what happened to Josh Smith going from 2.9 bpg in his 2nd and 3rd seasons to 1.4-1.5 bpg for most of his other seasons.

[Wretch]

"Play defense and the offense will take care of itself.  The sh!t works."

Josh was a knucklehead for sure, but Woodson's complete disregard for the offense was a complete enabler for him.  I will always wonder how Josh would have grown with a better coach and system.  With his size and athleticism, and had he put in the work, he would be a viable post threat.  Also, his passing was overlooked and underutilized:

The Josh we know would have been traded by midseason because he and Trae would have been like oil and water.  BUT, if he had a coach like Quin and was receptive, I believe he would have been an amazing fit next to Trae.  With shooters and a good system, he'd be a solid 20/10 with triple-double potential.

PS - Mike Woodson is the spokesperson for all you people that think playing defense is the only thing that matters.

[capstone21]

Josh was awful and overrated ... he was super athletic which made up for his low bbiq and lack of a jumper (yet he jacked up shots like they were goin going out of style).