Paxson dumped him for nothing. https://theringer.com/nba-finals-game-7-cavaliers-4428b5e342ed#.v7f451lzp
LeBron averaged a career low (or near it) 36 MPG this year. Noah played 36.8 and 35.3 MPG in his two all-star seasons.
Interesting question. Teams have certainly valued Hinrich more highly as evidenced by salary paid, but Smith is much younger and maybe some team will finally open its wallet for him during the back third of his career. For their careers to date, I'll take Hinrich. Who's better right now? Smith, obviously.
Smith has a career PER of 14.9. Hinrich's is 12.8. Smith has had 2 seasons with PER over 17. Hinrich one. I'm not sure Hinrich was EVER better.
By teams, you mean Paxson's Bulls, right? Paxson is the only guy to give Kirk Hinrich big money. And, given his production after that contract, it was money poorly spent.
I think Smith was clearly an important piece for the Cleveland team that won the championship due to the traits that always made him attractive in the first place: he's a big, athletic guard with a nice 3 pt. stroke. It's not an accident he was in the closing lineup that won game 7. However, my take home lesson from the series wasn't "JR Smith, forever and always", but more "Knuckleheads can change, but it takes time." He looks to me like he's calmed himself down on the court and the reduced amount of unforced errors has made it easier to make him a useful player. I'm very happy for him. In 2006 my estimation of him was that he was still in the "dim bulb" phase of his career and wasn't disappointed when the Bulls decided to part ways with him. I don't think his presence or absence changed the trajectory of our franchise very much and thus don't have strong feelings about the issue right now either way.
