Josh Smith: A Mid-Career Retrospective

By Jordan Nedlin

July 6, 2013

Josh Smith is an enigma, touted by some as the poor man’s LeBron James yet shoots jumpers like a blindfolded Shaq.  Born in College Park, Georgia, he would go on to excel on his high school team and join fellow future NBA players Dwight Howard and Randolph Morris on the highly coveted AAU team, the Atlanta Celtics.  Following his junior year of high school, after realizing that he had true next level talent, Josh attended Oak Hill Academy in Virginia.  The private boarding school has been home to many perennial all stats including Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant.  Josh decided to declare for the NBA draft straight out of high school, forgoing his college years to begin collecting an NBA level salary, but also to begin competing alongside NBA competition.  The 6 ft 9 in, 225 lb combo forward was picked 17^th by the Atlanta Hawks, and made All-Rookie second team honors, as well as taking home the slam dunk contest trophy during his inaugural season.  During his rookie season he posted a FG% of .455, making 274 out of 602 field goals, including 4 of 23 from 3pt range.  He also posted 6.2 rebounds and 1.7 assists, a career low and a stat that J-Smoove would continually raise throughout his now 9 year career. 

Throughout the progression of his career, Smith continually raised the frequency of his three point shooting, with little to show for it.  From his rookie season (04-05) to his fifth season in the league (08-09) he posted a 3P% of .174, .309, .250, .253, and .299.  Smith, obviously not hyped as a shooter, showed extreme promise on the defensive end of the floor.  During his rookie year alone, and though he only played in 74 games, he posted an excellent 1.9 blocks per game.  Smith holds three shot blocking records, including being the youngest player to record 10 blocks in a game, at 19 years and 13 days.  He is also the youngest NBA player to ever record 500 blocks, doing so in 206 career games, at the age of 21 years, 88 days.  On February 2^nd, 2010, at the age of 24 years, 59 days, with a total of 423 games played Smith became the youngest player to record 1000 blocks in a career. 

During the 2009-2010 season something changed with Smith.  For whatever reason he stopped shooting 3 pointers.  He went from 87 three point shots the previous season to only 7, making none of them.  This seemed to breed positive results, as he posted a career high .505 FGA.  During this same season Smith also played the most games of any season played in the league, playing and starting in 81 of the 82 scheduled games.  He also posted a career high in rebounds, assists and steals, pulling the ball down off the rim 705 times, setting up teammates a total of 342 times, and robbing opponents of possessions 130 times, for an average of 8.7 rebounds, 4.2 assists, and 1.6 steals per game. 

The lessons learned in the previous season did not carry over to the 2010-2011 season, as Smith posted a career high 154 three point shots, making 51 of them for .331 3P%.  He saw slightly decreased numbers in rebounding, over 1 assist less per game, a decline in steals and a considerable lack of blocks compared to the previous year.  In 2011-12 Smith shot even worse from 3pt range, posting an abysmal 28 of 109 for .257 3P%.  It was during this season that Smith was plagued by an MCL strain that caused him to miss a career high amount of games playing in only 66.  During the 2012-13 season, Smith continued his trend of increased 3pt shooting, going 61 of 201 from behind the arc, an unimpressive 30%. 

(Photo Credit: @kirkgoldsberry)

This graphic from Kirk Goldsberry, a Harvard professor and analytics enthusiast, shows that Smith has never been a proficient shooter from behind the arc, but shows extreme talent when attacking the basket, something that he does at an above average clip, accounting for most of his points and certainly his most effective scoring.     

During his free agency in the 2013 off season, Smith signed a 4 year, 56 million dollar contract with the Detroit Pistons, a team that is already loaded with low post scoring and interior defense with Greg Monroe and sophomore to be, Andre Drummond.  The signing is questionable because it will force Josh to revert back to his poor jump shooting ways instead of putting him in a setting that would place him in the middle of an offense with two or three 3 point shooters to spread the floor.  Smith would excel in the type of offense very similar to the one the Miami Heat run, centered around LeBron James.  Since there are always many long range shooters surrounding LeBron at all times, he is able to freely attack the basket and try to create contact and draw a foul or kick it out to a shooter for a wide open three after their defender collapsed to help the interior defender defend LeBron.        

Smith was faced with this option when his longtime friend and former teammate Dwight Howard chose to sign with the Houston Rockets to play alongside a top 5 shooting guard in the league in James Harden, on a Rockets team that was responsible for making the most 3pt shots per game during the 2012-13 season.  It seems that Houston would have been the best fit for Smith in order to create a starting 5 of Howard, Smith, Parsons, Harden, and Jeremy Lin.  This starting lineup, in addition to Houston’s ability to get shots off its bench, combined with an insane amount of interior defense during the times that Smith would share the floor with Howard would seem to be the perfect way to jumpstart his career.  Instead Smith chose money over championships and received the contract he had been looking for, for many years. 

Maybe Smith will never get it quite right.  He has been on the cusp of the all-star team his whole career, but just can’t seem to crack the lineup.  Maybe 2013-14 will be the year.  Possibly with a young core in Detroit, Smith will be revitalized and will pay more attention to attacking.  That, combined with the lack of big-man talent in the east, due to Kevin Garnett’s aging, Chris Bosh’s ineffectiveness, and Tyson Chandler’s shortcomings, Smith might be able to make some noise.  Of course we won’t know anything until we see what kind of additional moves Joe Dumars, Pistons GM, makes during this exciting offseason.  New Detroit coach Maurice Cheeks might be able to get Smith right after all.  

This is the second in a series of many NBA related articles, Follow me on Twitter @JordanNedlin for constant updates and other NBA bits.