Where Are The Smiths

The following post will make you hate the word Smith.

- Charles Smith is with everyone's favourite delicatessen, Efes Pilsen, where he averages 14.7 points in the Turkish league and 12.0 points in the Euroleague.

- Donta Smith is in Australia, which sort of has a Chinese league thing going on with its American imports, albeit thankfully not as exaggerated. For comparison's sake, Donta started the year in China, so I can give you his Chinese league numbers (22.5 ppg, 5.9 rpg, 4.7 apg, 2.8 spg) and you can compare them with his Australian league numbers (14.1 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 3.0 apg, 1.2 spg). Smith's team, the Melbourne South Dragons, are currently playing in the NBL Grand Final Series Thing, and Smith led the team to a victory in Game 1 with a 19 point, 11 rebound, 5 assist performance. On this night, the team gave away 6,000 posters of Donta to the crowd.

- For what seems like years now, I've been talking about how Jabari Smith became a nationalised citizen of Qatar. But actually, he didn't; he applied for citizenship, but, for whatever reason, he didn't get it. I'm not sure why he wanted or needed it, unless he was wanting to enhance his career in the Qatarian leagues, but still. Jabari isn't signed at the moment, having last played in Iran.

- JaJuan Smith played with the Mavericks in summer league, chucked jumpers mericlessly, hit a few, got a training camp invite, got cut, sat around, went to Slovenia, got cut within days of arriving, and is now in France. In 5 games for the struggling Pau Orthez, Smith averages 8.8 points and 2.8 rebounds, having shot 12 two pointers, 4 free throws, and 31 three pointers.

- Jamar Smith (not the transferred Illinois one, but the one formerly from Maryland) is in the Italian second division, averaging 14.0 points and 7.9 rebounds for Fastweb Junior Casale Monferrato, whom INSTANTLY you will recognise as also being the home of David Thorpe's mate, Zabian Dowdell. Or at least you would if you'd been paying extreme, obsessive-compulsive attention.

- As seems to be the case with everyone that the Wizards ever sign for training camp, former Virginia Tech and Bowie State forward Jon Smith is in Argentina, averaging 11.7 points and 6.0 rebounds for Lanus Buenos Aires in Buenos Aires. Now, I've never heard of Jon Smith before, and only found out about him when it emerged that I needed one more Smith to pad this post out. But here is his basketball career thus far:

a: Spent three years barely playing for Virginia Tech.
b: Transferred to Bowie State (wherever that is), and averaged 13.9 ppg and 7.3 rpg.
c: Played a combined 5 games in his first professional season (2003-04) between the CBA and the USBL.
d: Signed by the Wizards for training camp in October 2004. Then inevitably waived.
e: Played in the USBL again in 2004-05, as well as the IBL.
f: Spent the 2005-06 season in China.
g: Averaged 14.0 ppg and 4.3 rpg in Portugal the following season.
h: Spent last year in China and Puerto Rico.
i: Has played for two teams in Argentina this season.

From this, I conclude that Jon Smith has never played a particularly high standard of basketball. Wizards excluded, Virginia Tech might have been the highest calibre basketball that he played on that list, and yet he barely played there. (Note: no jokes about the current Wizards please.) So what, then, did Washington see in him? Do tell.


- No, no, no, no, no-torrrrious Leon Smith has spent the last few years doing a tour of Central and South America, a tour that has encompassed Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and now Chile again. L-Smoove is playing for Deportes Castro, and while I don't have Chilean league numbers, I can tell you that Deportes Castro recently took part in the Liga Americas (a club competition for the Americas teams). In the three games he played, Smith scored 32 points, then 10 points, then 1 point. This might have something to do with the fact that they played a back to back to back.

- Steve Smith was a commentator for the Atlanta Hawks, but now works for NBA TV. I have been meaning to do a "rate the commentators" list for some time now, but haven't got around to it, and nor am I particularly ready to draw the ire of those Raptors fans who haven't quite learned to understand that Chuck Swirsky's slightly irritating Chuckisms are twenty thousand times more worthwhile that Matt Devlin, who permanently sounds like he's under a sink and who laughs like a misfiring Cadillac. (He's last on the list, then. So is Austin Carr.)

- Steven Smith is with VAP Kolossos in Greece, averaging 18.4 and 5.2 rebounds, while shooting a Steve Smith-like 47% from three point range.

- Despite persistent rumours to the contrary, Morrissey continues to deny rumours of a The Smiths reunion.

- Theron Smith is in China with TianJin Rongcheng. He averages 24.4 points, 9.8 rebounds and 4.6 assists. All told, that's a bit tame, isn't it?

- Still, if you think that's disappointing, pay attention to Tommy Smith's season. The ex-Bulls and Bucks forward spent the 2005 and 2006 seasons in Germany, never averaging more than 7.3 points per game. (I know you're a defensive minded player, Tommy, but it's Germany. Surely you can do better than that.) He spent last season in Syria, averaging unknown numbers, and then signed earlier this season in China. Did he averages 30 points per game? 25? 20? 15? Nope. Smith averaged 1 point per game in all of 2 games (totalling 45 minutes) before being waived and replaced by Chris Alexander (who has somewhat restored order with a 16.8 point, 12.0 rebound per game average). Since then, Smith has remained unsigned, and last month was arrested for kidnapping and assault after punching his girlfriend in the face. Quite a good few months, all told.

- The whitest man in showbiz, Tyler Smith (not the Tennessee player, but the former Penn State forward; the really really white one) is in Japan, averaging a frankly unimpressive 7.8 points and 2.5 rebounds per game for the Hitachi Sunrockers. (Great name.) Smith writes a blog of sorts for Eurobasket.com about his experiences in Japan, but for the life of me I can't find a single entry.

- Finally, here's the season so far for all of the Smith's in the NBA.

Craig Smith is averaging 9.1 points, 3.4 rebounds and 1.45 PPS despite his incompatibility with the rest of the Timberwolves big men.

Earl Smith averages 13.5 points, 3.9 rebounds and 2.5 assists as the Denver Nuggets' sixth man.

Jason Smith hasn't played all year after knee surgery.

Josh Smith's numbers are down across the board, as he averages 15.1 points, 6.9 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.6 blocks and 55% FT.

And Otis Smith is fortuitously dining out on the Magic's success, hopefully striving to figure out how he can "creatively finance" retaining both Hedo Turkoglu and Marcin Gortat without paying the tax.


I'm kind of sick at looking at the word Smith now.

Summer signings, round 13

- After signing Brian Skinner and waiving Josh Powell, as described in the previous blog post, the Clippers finally did the other obvious thing and withdrew the qualifying offer to Nick Fazekas. This moves leaves them with roughly $1.4 million in remaining cap space. However, if they hadn't made the moves to sign draftees Eric Gordon, DeAndre Jordan and Mike Taylor unnecessarily early, as well as the even more unnecessary Jason Hart trade, then that number would be more like $2.5 million. I'm going to keep bloody going on about this until someone patronisingly rubs me on the head and tells me that it's OK.

- Adonal Foyle re-signed with the Orlando Magic, who still don't have a good backup big man. I'm all about Marcin Gortat, though. I like him. Also, free agent Magic guard Carlos Arroyo signed with Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel, a move insignificant of itself, but which serves to make this year's already weal free agency point guard crop even weaker. Someone needs to either gamble on Shaun Livingston, or get Kevin Ollie back in this league. Anything to keep Smush Parker out. (NB: Earl Boykins was rumoured to be going to Maccabi, but that was before the Arroyo signing was announced, so I doubt that's still on. However, for all his failings, Boykins is maybe now the best free agent left on the market. That's how bad the market is.)

- While we're on the subject of crappy journeyman point guards, Anthony Goldwire is still going, signing for Egaleo in Greece. Goldwire's kicking 40's door down, in the words of the lyrically superior Eminem, but he's still getting basketball jobs. So he's either broke, or he deeply loves the game. I truly hope it's the latter.

- The Lakers signed a short D-League scoring guard, Dwayne Mitchell. Seems like a weird place to start when they have other depth concerns, but oh well. I watched qutie a bit of the Lakers summer league, and Mitchell didn't play much behind such luminaries as Joe Crawford, Coby Karl, Brian Roberts and Cedric Bozeman. I don't know what to make of that.

- Julius Hodge says he wants to make an NBA comeback. Hmmmm. For those unaware, Hodge played for the New Jersey Nets summer league team. For those also unaware, the New Jersey Nets basketball operations person thingy is Kiki Vanderweghe. For those yet further unaware, Kiki Vanderweghe is the man who drafted Hodge way too frigging high back when Vanderwghe was the basketball operations person thingy with the Denver Nuggets. Yet even while crossing the country to follow the one guy to date who thought him worthy of an NBA contract, Hodge couldn't get himself another one. That doesn't bode well.

- Kevinn Pinkney and Shan Foster have agreed to sign with Juve Caserta in Italy. Therefore, Shan Foster must continue to wait to PLAAAAY IN THE NBAAAAAAAA". (I laughed at myself. Judge me if you must.)

- Another Dallas secound round draft pick, Renaldas Seibutis, has signed with Bilbao in Spain. Do you know how hard it is to think up good Renaldas Seibutis jokes? Let me tell you. It's very hard indeed. So I won't bother.

- Ndudi Ebi has signed with Carife Ferrara in Italy, alongside Harold Jamison. There just aren't enough Harold Jamison updates in the world today. Do you know what you get if you Google News-search "Harold Jamison"? Nothing. Well, nothing in English, anyway. Fucking shame.

- Steven Smith has signed with Kolossos Rhodes in Greece, perhaps the finest non-Phillipino team name I've ever seen. Such imperialism! Such history! Such distinction! Such pressure! Good luck Steven.

- Uros Slokar has signed for Fortitudo Bologna. By the way, if you like professional basketball players with accessibility, you'll LOVE Uros Slokar's website. Feel free to email him. Tell him I sent you. Offer him the job as this site's main web developer. Don't tell him that it's unpaid.

30 teams in 36 or so days: Philadelphia

Philadelphia 76ers


Players acquired via free agency or trade:

Jack diddly crap



Players acquired via draft:

First round: Thaddeus Young (12th overall), Jason Smith (20th overall, acquired in draft night trade)
Second round: Derrick Byars (42nd overall, acquired in draft night trade, unsigned), Herbert Hill (55th overall, acquired in draft night trade, unsigned)


Players retained:

Louis Williams (exercised team option), Shavlik Randolph (exercised player option)


Players departed:

Joe Smith (signed with Chicago), Alan Henderson (unsigned, might yet return)


Bobbins:

Trivia question: Which player did Billy King either sign or re-sign this offseason for way too many guaranteed years and guaranteed money, as is his yearly custom to do at least once?

Answer: No one.

This is extremely unusual behaviour from the man who in recent years has given out or taken on the contracts of Aaron McKie, Allen Iverson, Chris Webber, Samuel Dalembert, Dikembe Mutombo, Todd MacCulloch, Greg Buckner, Kevin Ollie, Derrick Coleman, Marc Jackson, Keith Van Horn, Eric Snow, Steven Hunter, Jamal Mashburn, Glenn Robinson, Brian Skinner, Kenny Thomas, Corliss Williamson, George Lynch and Willie Green, amongst others. Years of piling on payroll and trying to manoeuvre his way out of previous bad personel decisions have left his team with a big tab to pick up, and not much to show for it. This, it would appear, has stymied King's spending habits, if only for a bit (next year, the Sixers payroll predicts to be about half of where it is now).

The offshoot from this, though, is that King has not improved his team in any capacity via trades or free agency. And this leaves him with all his eggs in one basket, having to address his team needs via the draft.

Historically, this is where King does his best work. Having not had much in the way of high draft picks during his tenure, on draft night King has acquired players such as Larry Hughes, Speedy Claxton Nazr Mohammed, Kyle Korver and John Salmons, as well as Green, MacCulloch, Dalembert and Iguodala, the majority of whom turned in great value for their draft spot. This season, armed with three first rounders as a result of the Iverson trade and also a second rounder, King figured to improve his roster notably in one hit.

Did it work? Did it bollocks.

In the 2006 draft, King made a draft day trade that wound up with him selecting Rodney Carney in the first round. It was a strange pick - a backup at best with playes in front of him, and with no standout skills to really speak of outside of his athleticism, Carney didn't add much to a roster which, at that time (and even now), needed a big infusion of talent. The pick was made just that little bit more pointless when King then selected another small forward - Bobby Jones - in the second round. He also signed free agent small forwards Steven Smith and Louis Amundson at various points in the season.

You could say he has a thing for small forwards with decent to debatable talent. And you'd be right - in this year's first round, he saw fit to draft another one, selecting the phantasmogoric Thaddeus Young with his first pick.

His second first round pick saw more of the strange duplication tactic going on. Already stuck with paying multiple years and a whole arseload of money to Dalembert and Hunter, King decided that he needed a third tall athletic shotblocker with mediocre offense, drafting Jason Smith out of Colorado State. Whether Young and Smith go on to become good picks isn't really the point - with a number of issues to address on his roster, King chooses to select another player who is predominantly a mere duplication of what he's already got in place.

How illogical.

King's other draft night moves involved swapping his third and final first rounder (subsequently used on Petteri Koponen) for a mid second rounder (subsequently used on Derrick Byars), with players such as Josh McRoberts, Glen Davis and Jermareo Davidson selected in between the two. And Philadelphia's own second rounder - number 38, used on Kyrylo Fesenko - was traded to Utah for their number 55 selection - Herbert Hill - and "future considerations".

Due to a roster spots crunch, it looks as though Byars and Hill will be coming to training camp to battle for only one spot, which isn't exactly an efficient return when you consider that we're talking about what began as the #30 and #38 picks in a deep draft. Oh and what's more, Byars is a small forward, and Hill is a centre. So more duplication there.

After trading Allen Iverson to Denver fairly early during last season, and following that up by buying out Chris Webber, Philadelphia went from being a 5-18 team at the time of the trade to ending with a 35-47 record. For you maths fans out there, that's a 30-29 record after the trade - above .500.

How they did this continues to baffle me. And why they did this is also dumbfounding. Perhaps it would have more fiscal - if somewhat irresponsible - to tank the blue blazes out of the remainder of the year, as was done by other teams, and try to win a top 3 lottery spot. They had the sufficiently shit team with which to achieve it, after all.

Still, in a sense, you have to admire them for trying to do the right thing, and play the right way. Yet, as one Philadelphia fan said to me towards the end of last season after I mentioned that I admired Philadelphia attempting to try and win games, "I want them to try as well! I just want them to fail."

It's a good point well made, and speaks to the questionable direction taken by management in recent times. When built to win, they lose. And when built to lose, they win. How bizarre.

In return for superstar Allen Iverson, Philadelphia received a half-year of Joe Smith, signed by Chicago in a particularly unspectacular bidding war (Joe didn't even get the full MLE for the two years that he signed. Gotta love GM's that lose out on important players because they overspent less deserving players and ran out of budget). They received Andre Miller, a nice player, and the later two first rounders, parlayed as described above into Jason Smith and Derrick Byars. And a bit of cap relief.

That's all. That's all they received back. For Allen Iverson. How......bizarre. And given the way that they didn't tank out the season, they wound up with Thaddeus Young over the Al Horford and Mike Conley types of this world. Or better, if they were lucky.

What a strange, strange year they had last season. And by "strange", I mean "bad". Here's to more of Kevin Ollie as a backup point guard.




Next season:

As mentioned above, Philadelphia played basically .500 ball for the final two thirds of last season. And I don't get it. The argument which states that it is the sum of the parts that equates to success rather than the value of the actual parts itself holds very true, and always has done. It certainly seems to have applied to the Sixers of last season, and to the neutral it was great fun to see an offense based largely around Kyle Korver succeed quite as it did.

But can it succeed again? If you're a Sixers fan, you have to hope so, because little help has come from outside.

The starting backcourt is talented, but the backups are weak. Kevin Ollie is awesome, but terrible. Louis Williams still hasn't shown an NBA calibre game. And while Willie Green can score, he's more inefficient than an American muscle car. This didn't get addressed this offseason, other than to add the swingman Byars alongside Carney as crossover artists at the 2/3 spots. Outside shooting comes in the form of Kyle Korver and Green, yet not much from everyone else (Iguodala has his days, but it's not a strength yet).

Front court scoring isn't particularly noteworthy, either. Shavlik Randolph will return, but Joe Smith departs, and no offense really replaces him. Jason Smith and Dalembert offer occasional yet inefficient offense at best, and Steven Hunter is bloody terrible.

They have the league's worst power forward rotation, worsened since Smith left for Chicago, and they also don't feature a particularly consistent or hardy centre spot.

There's a lot of flaws on the roster, is what I'm trying to say,

But then again, there was a lot of flaws on the roster last year, and they played mostly .500 ball. I don't know how they did it, but they did it, and circumstances have not changed much. They can do it again.

And besides, they're still in the Eastern Conference. So they still have a playoff chance.



EDIT - Ok, so after I wrote this, the Sixers decided to have a quick flurry of action. Having done toss all for over two whole months, they waited until the short window that it took me to write and post this to do the damn thang. Thanks for that, Billy. Show me up, why don't you.

The Sixers made three moves in this time. They signed Herbert Hill and Derrick Byars (albeit to unguaranteed deals), agreed to sign Calvin Booth, and traded Steven Hunter and Bobby Jones to Denver (apparently their favourite trading partner now) for Reggie Evans and the draft rights to Ricky Sanchez.

The trade opened up a roster spot, as Sanchez is unsigned (although only a fraction of Jones's salary was guaranteed anyway, but whatever), and helps alleviate some of the duplicaiton outlined above. Meanwhile, Reggie Evans may be perhaps the most one-trickish of all the one trick ponies out there in the league today, as well as being quite poor and overpaid. But he is, for what it's worth, the superior player to Steven Hunter. It's one extra year of salary, but hey, this is Philadelphia, who cares about that sort of thing?

But as for the Calvin Booth thing.....

.....they traded the number 30 pick for the number 42 pick under the guise of saving money, and then go and spend that money on Calvin Booth?

And Reggie Evans for that matter?

You're still the master, Billy King. You're still the fucking master.