Ten Of The Worst New Contracts This Offseason
Josh Smith – Detroit Pistons
As with most of the players on this list, it is not necessarily the price paid so much as it is the purposelessness of paying it. Detroit, like Charlotte, has to pay an invisible tax (manifested through inflated contracts) to attract free agents. This is a reality that has to be accepted and which can add as much as 30 percent to a player’s price. And it has seemingly done so here.
However, if Detroit is going to be forced to overpay for someone, it should do so on someone who coexists with the good core they are building. Smith has well established strengths and flaws, and it is long known by this time that he plays best as a power forward. Barring injuries, however, he will not be able to do so much. The Pistons already are, or should be, committed to making the Greg Monroe/Andre Drummond partnership work, and any hypothesis that Smith can harmoniously coexist with this while splitting time at the small forward positions is a deliberately optimistic one. The coveted free agent, then, will be immediately put out of position. This problem also mustn’t overshadow the problems of paying $13.5 million to a player who cannot make a shot outside of three feet, but who never seems to know it.
Detroit acted strong and decisively in free agency, but in doing so, they overpaid for someone with no remaining upside and scant few other suitors who clogs up a depth chart at a position where it was already well catered for. It could be a Ben Gordon situation all over again. The saving grace is that Smith should be far more tradeable.
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As with most of the players on this list, it is not necessarily the price paid so much as it is the purposelessness of paying it. Detroit, like Charlotte, has to pay an invisible tax (manifested through inflated contracts) to attract free agents. This is a reality that has to be accepted and which can add as much as 30 percent to a player’s price. And it has seemingly done so here.
However, if Detroit is going to be forced to overpay for someone, it should do so on someone who coexists with the good core they are building. Smith has well established strengths and flaws, and it is long known by this time that he plays best as a power forward. Barring injuries, however, he will not be able to do so much. The Pistons already are, or should be, committed to making the Greg Monroe/Andre Drummond partnership work, and any hypothesis that Smith can harmoniously coexist with this while splitting time at the small forward positions is a deliberately optimistic one. The coveted free agent, then, will be immediately put out of position. This problem also mustn’t overshadow the problems of paying $13.5 million to a player who cannot make a shot outside of three feet, but who never seems to know it.
Detroit acted strong and decisively in free agency, but in doing so, they overpaid for someone with no remaining upside and scant few other suitors who clogs up a depth chart at a position where it was already well catered for. It could be a Ben Gordon situation all over again. The saving grace is that Smith should be far more tradeable.