This summer, I expect to hear J.R. Smith's name brought up repeatedly in connection with the Bulls. I don't really feel like dealing with Smith piecemeal so I might as well get my feelings out on the table. For those unfamiliar with Smith, he's a 25 year-old 6-6 shooting guard who has played the last 4 seasons for the Denver Nuggets. In 2004, the New Orleans Hornets signed him out of high school as the 18th overall pick in the NBA draft. After two years with New Orleans, he was traded as "filler" in the trade that brought P.J. Brown to the Bulls and sent Tyson Chandler to New Orleans. The Bulls kept Smith for 6 days...as long as it took to get a couple 2nd round picks from the Nuggets...the Bulls had absolutely no interest in Smith. Smith is an extremely talented scorer, averaging 18.8 points per 36 minutes over his 7-year NBA career. He's also adequately efficient with a career true shooting percentage of 54.7%. I haven't watched many of his games since neither New Orleans nor Denver tend to get a lot of national TV run. From what I've seen, he's got a huge "Wow Factor." Unfortunately, he's also got a huge "WTF Factor." He's an indiscriminate shooter. He's a career 37% 3-point shooter, which is OK, but that doesn't really tell the story. When Smith is on, he doesn't just make 3-pointers, he makes 3-pointers from what ought to be 4-point range....with a hand in his face...and off balance. Seriously, he can be amazing. Cutting to the chase, I have no interest in Smith...zero. He's a bit of a whack job and a coach's nightmare. While I haven't seen many of his games, I can recognize a million dollar player with a 10 cent head when I see him. This is what Smith is. Someday someone might rehabilitate him and he could become an absolute jewel. The Bulls need to make some incremental improvement, but they don't need to take this kind of risk. As a 19 year-old rookie, New Orleans head coach Byron Scott started Smith in 56 of the 76 games Smith played, but only played him 24 minutes per game. After that rookie season, the uber-talented Smith has been a bench player. It's the kind of thing that makes you go "hmm." And it's not as if he's been coached by clueless novices...Scott and Denver head coach George Karl know the game. Even when the Nuggets lost their top scorer Carmelo Anthony, Karl didn't start Smith or see fit to play him big minutes. In their 2011 playoff loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Karl played Smith a paltry 15 minutes per game. It's been said that it got to the point that Karl refused to talk to Smith. He'd send him in the game from time to time, but didn't want to deal with him. For those keeping track, this is not a good thing. Oh yeah, part of the reason many Bulls fans are all gaga about Smith is that Smith is a free agent. Smith supporters believe that he'll be available for the mid-level exception (aka the MLE...about $5million year 1 salary and, since the Bulls are over the salary cap. the only way that they can sign a free agent outright). If the Bulls could sign Smith with the MLE, they wouldn't need to trade any of their current players. Pure and simple, Smith's a headcase. While he undeniably has loads of talent, he's never quite taken the game or his career seriously. After 7 seasons, I happen to believe that those who believe that this might change with the Bulls are simply foolish optimists. These fans will counter with something like, "Yeah, but the Bulls have to do something!" I hear ya, but the Bulls won 62 games and don't need to employ a roulette wheel strategy to the team's improvement. They don't need to "take a flyer" on a proven loser...and that's what J.R. Smith is...a proven loser. Tom Nossem
The thing about Smith is he gives the Bulls exactly what they need. 37% 3pt shooting is outstanding, IMO. Like you wrote, he can get really hot and score a bunch of 3's in a row. He's a scorer as well as a shooter - a stark contrast to Korver. As far as headcase, yeah it's true. However, so was Rodman and a great coach was able to deal with the eccentricities and get max production possible from the guy. That would be Thibs' challenge. I'm not sure where you get that Smith is a proven loser. His team made the playoffs after trading away Melo for only serviceable players. You forgot to mention his 1.7 steals per 36.
Preach! Denny, the steals numbers are great, but is he really going to be able to guard Dwayne Wade in the playoffs next year. No.
Wade shot 32-79, or .405 for the series. He scored 94 points, or 19 PPG. Bogans shot 8-23 and scored 23 points. Brewer shot 13-23 and scored 36 points. Korver shot 7-22 and scored 19 points. Total = 28-68 (.412) for 78 points. I'm not getting the "who defends Wade" argument, when he outscored all three of our SGs COMBINED and they won 4 of the 5 games in the series.
Bulls are going to have to decide what they want to do here. A 6-6 SG that is good enough to defend Wade and can create his own shot and stick the 3 is called an all-star. We're not going to have one of those fall into our lap most likely. We're going to have to add a player or two that has a weakness. The word out of everyone's mouth during the playoffs is that Derrick needs help with the scoring / shot creation mode. JR Smith would help with this but would hurt on D. Or we could keep Bogans, who does not hurt you on D, but can't create his own shot. A guy that does everything likely wont' be available unless we give a lot up. If the Bulls really want to help Derrick out w/ the shot creation / 3 point shot making, they very well may need a guy like JR Smith.
Would Smith sign a two-year deal with a team option for the second? I'd go for that. This is a cop-out, but I'm undecided on Smith. As a Bulls fan, my otherwise rosy outlook for the team is tempered by two sobering realities: 1). We're at least one player away from being perennial contenders. 2). There's no one out there that readily fits the bill. To get from point A to point B, we either need to capture lightning in a bottle with the draft or a trade or take a chance on a guy like Smith. That's not enough to make me really want Smith though. The guy really is a knucklehead. And unlike Rodman or Rasheed Wallace, he's a knucklehead on the court.
Wait, holding the record for having the most technicals is not being a knucklehead on the court? Punching a cameraman or nearly killing Scottie Pippen is not being a knucklehead on the court? As Denny mentions, the guy has enough intelligence and wherewithal to put the ball in the net from just about anywhere. Of course, you weigh the pros and cons. But I think the guy is a serious option. JR Smith. JR Smith. JR Smith. Heard his name enough, yet, Transplant?
Despite their character flaws, those guys regularly played extremely intelligent basketball. They had self-control issues, but they were mostly with off-court issues (but not entirely....as you pointed out). JR Smith regularly makes bone-headed plays with in the course of the game, which is why he's always been a bench player despite his talent. To compare their basketball bone-headedness, I like to think of it this way: A game boils down to strings of discreet performable instances by each player on each team while they're on the floor. Rotating, shooting, hand-checking, kicking camera man in the nuts, and fouling all count. Things like getting technicals and starting fights are very visible and draw attention to themselves, but are dwarfed in importance by the more mundane actions due to sheer volume. If you measure a players error-rate as a summation of all these things, guys like Rodman and Wallace come out way ahead of guys like Smith and Jamal Crawford. They were saucy idiots, but they had the nuts and bolts of the game down cold. JR Smith's game (and style of idiocy), does not have this distinction.
On a slightly related note, I think discussions about our SG bring an unpleasant reality to light: We might be more than one move away. While all we need to round out our team is a well-rounded SG, that SG does not seem to be readily available to us. At least not that I can see.
And Bogans shot 38% from 3pt during the season and 42% during the playoffs. So shouldn't we set the bar a little higher than that? As for Rose needing a second creator, that's mostly bullshit. Rose needs to be able to better handle those situations. The bulls got 80 something games into the season and suddenly they need a second creator? Does that sound stupid to anybody else, like a knee-jerk column from a guy who only writes basketball columns when it isn't football or baseball season? Sure it would be easier if he played next to an all-star like Wade, but that isn't going to happen. Rose needs to be a better distributor, and Deng/Boozer/Noah/SG need to do more with the opportunities they get.
And Denny's post pretty much makes my case. Our shooting guards scored 80% of what Wade did and shot better, and they were generally the fifth option on offense. Unless the bulls get somebody who is legitimately better than Deng or Boozer, the SG is going to be an afterthought offensively.
I like Afflalo better than Smith cuz he plays good D. Idk about Twin Lee, i think smith shoots better (although twin plays better d, it seems sometimes that he doesnt "get it" at time either). However, we DO need a 2nd ballhandler. I do believe that Derrick needs to handle those situations better but shit how much better does he need to be? Plain and simple, he NEEDS help. Defenses tune into him and because we dont have a legit shooter at the 2 guard, or 2nd scorer for that matter, they just work to shut him down and let the rest of the team beat them. Sometimes it works, but during the playoffs, when it counted, it didnt. Even if we dont get another ballhandler, we NEED a legit SCORER at 2, not just a shooter. It wouldnt hurt if they played D well either.
You've been on a roll as of late, rosenthal. I completely agree about the fact that there is no one out there who fits the bill. I looked through the entire list of shooting guard and power forwards who would be a legitimate upgrade and there's nothing there. The only name I could come up with for players who may shift the Bulls-Heat balance was Stephen Jackson (and I get the feeling that if Jackson was a possibility the deal would have been made). That leaves the draft and the extremely negligible chance the Bulls somehow land Howard. I understand that people are mixed on Smith. I fall in the no camp because of what you mentioned, he's a problem on the court. That and Smith's character record shows incidents of him being a harm to his community as well as to himself.
Bogans scored 5.1 PPG for the playoffs. Some of us don't confuse shooting % with scoring. A scorer would spread the defense and force one of the guys triple teaming Rose to cover him. And to say that people all along weren't bagging on Bogans for his weak offense, or saying the Bulls needed a second ballhandler, all season long is ignorant of the facts.
Good discussion. If you give a properly-spun incomplete description of Smith as a player, the case is strong that he's just what the Bulls need. However, if that description was reality, the Nuggets would've locked him up already. He's available and almost certain to take a pay cut entirely because of his negatives. Those who want the Bulls to sign him seem to either say "it's worth the risk" or somehow believe that the negatives will disappear if he comes here. Whatever. As I've said, I'm not interested in spending the team's precious MLE (if still around) on Smith. We should be able to do better.
It's easy to say we can do better without saying how! So how do we get a 2nd wing who can handle the ball and create his own shot using just the MLE? Names, please.
I think the answer to that question is: "do nothing." "Do nothing" doesn't solve the SG problem, but it saves us from tying up limited resources in a problem-child, giving you a better shot at lightning-in-a-bottle down the road. I'm not sure that's what I'd do, but that's how I'd answer your question. Basically, you say this if you think JR Smith represents a local maximum (most talented SG available), but his antics and contract lower the team's chances of reaching a global maximum (swo-way SG who isn't going to cause problems) so much that it's not worth it.
Properly spun? Are you putting a reverse spin on this? He's not exactly what we need. We needed Dwyane Wade and LeBron, or Wade and Bosh. But you have to think about him. As Denny said, I'm not sure there's anything else out there worth waiting for. And tying up precious resources....? At this point, we need players who can score and can be a potent offensive option that spreads the court for one Mr. Rose. Doing nothing may well be what we need, and I'll trust Gar with that. You could almost say that we almost did nothing except hire Thibs and bring over Asik this year (sorry Denny, and Booz). And I would be excited for the season (please don't be canceled) anyway. But getting JR wouldn't make me upset. I'd be hopeful and feel good about what he might bring. Honestly, I'm most worried about derrick or Luol getting hurt. We could survive without Boozer or Noah, (and even both for a time), but I don't think we make it without one or the other of DR or LD.
In keeping with Good Hope's great post, I would agree that we need someone like Wade. It's just that we're not going to be getting someone like Wade. Smith isn't Wade. But on a scale of 1 (Bogans) to 10 (Wade), he's a lot closer to a 10 than a 1. At least a 5, and I think more like a 7 on that scale. The thing is, a 7 is a huge upgrade, but it isn't a second star. If he's the best we can do, then by all means why not sign him? The best case is he is enough to put us over the top (but not dominate). The worst case is we lose in the finals by 2 points instead of 10 in the games, and we have the next summer to reload - and we get Smith as our first guy off the bench.
