Josh Smith has been waived, but Stan Van Gundy has plenty of decisions left to make to turn the Pistons around.
Stanley Alan “Stan” Van Gundy exercised his dual powers as President of Basketball Operations and head coach of the Detroit Pistons on Monday by waiving former All-Star forward Josh Smith. If you want to absorb the move, you can read more about it In Monday’s piece. The Pistons, who are already a total mess, need to work out the salary cap ramifications of absorbing the remainder of Smith’s albatross contract while filling his minutes and considering their future options.
The news that Smith had been waived was something of a shock. Teams do have the option to waive a player under the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement, but to simply jettison a player instead of moving his contract is something that never gets exercised. However, it was becoming clear that Smith wasn’t helping this team in any way and was waived, in part, due to the Pistons unwillingness to include draft picks or garbage contracts in exchange, which ultimately eliminated the market for a forward that is a poor shooter from 3-point range, near the basket, on offense, on defense, on the bench, in the arena…you get the picture.
Now the pressing matter for the Pistons is going to be filling the minutes left vacant by Smith. First thing, rejoice! Now that Smith is gone, Van Gundy might be able to get a little more run out time for some of the players who are on the cusp. This could be a chance for some of those players to increase their minutes and develop their NBA game. Smith was never a fit for Van Gundy and my only regret in the waive was that we never got to see Van Gundy snap and actually choke Josh Smith after one of his many ill-advised shot attempts. I’m building a picture here that it was a good thing to cut Smith loose. Before we get too happy though, let’s run through that Pistons roster.
Oh. I see. While J-Smoove may not have been ideal, they are going to have to look to a possibly larger minutes load from a combination of Greg Monroe, Jonas Jerebko, Kyle Singler, Cartier Martin, Caron Butler and Luigi Datome. Smith averaged 32.0 minutes, 13.1 points, 7.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 1.3 steals per game this season. While those might not be terrible numbers, his per game shooting percentages of 39.1 percent overall and 24.3 percent from 3-point range is something they would be glad to live without when you consider Smith was averaging 14 shots per game to get those 13 points. If you average more shots per game than points, you are not heading in the right direction. And while Smith was shooting so poorly from beyond the arc, he was actually only 3.5 percent below his career average.
If we try to redistribute 32 additional minutes between the Pistons mentioned about, we could have countless different options. Most likely, we see an uptick in the already established players’ minutes, and the rest will fall to the roll players and late game garbage time subs. Singler, Monroe and Butler are already up over 20 minutes per game and will probably edge up. Jerebko and Martin have made it into double-digits in minutes and appeared in more than a game. Datome has only made it into one game, playing a total of 12 minutes on the season.
The Pistons are probably not done moving players, it has been rumored that in addition to Smith several other players on this team are movable parts. Brandon Jennings is the player that would seem most attractive to other teams and could bring the largest return, but his value is likely low as well due to inconsistent play since arriving in Detroit.
On Wednesday, the 48-hour hold on the move will expire assuming no one picks Smith up under his current contract terms. At that time the Pistons will need to enter their claim with the league to have the remaining contract amount spread out over the next five years instead of just 2015-16 and 2016-17. Once that is in place, the Pistons will almost have too much cap room. This team will look radically different by this time next year. If the team does not pick up the remaining term on the soon to be 35-year-old Caron Butler, they will have right around $34,000,000 to work with between the draft and free agency. The long view isn’t exactly clear, but Van Gundy has to feel pretty good about having so much free space under the cap as he re-works what the latter years of the Dumars era in Detroit left him.
While they may yet pull the trigger on a trade, the Pistons seem set to see the course of the season more as an audition for the future. Players like Kyle Singler, Greg Monroe, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Spencer Dinwiddie stand to benefit from the moves already made, and any potential moves yet to come. On the other end, Butler is likely playing to flash some skills to help him land work next year as it is unlikely the Pistons will exercise his option. A truck load of cap space, a rising salary cap, and a full year of working with a handful of young players to see which of them will be able to facilitate the system of Van Gundy’s choosing: this is what the 2014-15 season looks like from here on out for the Pistons.
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