HANG TIME, TEXAS – Danny Ferry has been on the job for only a few weeks and already he’s backed the moving van up to cart off Joe Johnson and Marvin Williams.
So are the movers ready to lift Josh Smith like an old sofa and carry him to the door next?
Not so fast, Ferry tells Jeff Schultz of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
“He’s a really good player,” Ferry said. “I love his ability to pass the ball. I love his ability to make game-changing plays defensively. I love his competitiveness. If I was out there playing, I would want Josh on my team.”
But does Smith want to be here? He wasn’t available for comment Tuesday, but Ferry said he has met with him twice.
“He’s excited for next season,” he said. “We haven’t really gone in that direction with him [on roster plans]. But we’ve talked about how we’re going to play. We’ve talked about other players. His ideas, my ideas. I’m just trying to establish a relationship.”
Smith has only one year left on his contract. While he reportedly has softened his stance on a trade request, he publicly has given no indication yet that he’s looking to re-sign here. He is coming off the best season of his career (18.8 points, 9.6 rebounds), taking on more responsibility after Al Horford’s injury, even with the occasional “Josh” moment.
“All players have strengths and areas where they have to get better,” Ferry said. “All of them are praised and criticized.”
Ferry has a vision for the Hawks next season, and Smith is a part of that. They’ll run more. They’ll have to, given the lack of size. They’re a guard-heavy team, with moves that brought in Devin Harris, Anthony Morrow, Louis Williams, Kyle Korver and rookie John Jenkins.
Ferry, of course, is no babe in the woods. He did a quite capable job of putting pieces around LeBron James in Cleveland that were good enough to get the Cavs to the 2007 Finals and the best record in the league twice (2008-09 and 2009-10). He’s learned the value of not overreacting and making rash moves by serving his time in the stable environment of the San Antonio Spurs.
Smith has enough raw talent oozing from his pores to probably fill out the roster of a team all by himself. He gets frustrated and hoists up bad shots. He got frustrated at the end of the season and said he wanted a trade.
The easy path would be for the Hawks to get frustrated and just ship Smith out, but then they kiss the playoffs goodbye. Ferry’s choice is the smarter one — let Smith and the new regime learn about each other and see if there is a foundation of trust and playing style to build upon. You always try to pick up the pieces before tossing them.
Man, the world would be better if Dwight Howard went to the Hawks, in a trade for Draft picks and Al Horford (for Howard and a heavy bad contract, like Turkoglu’s or Richardson’s). It would mantain the balance of power in the NBA and form a great pair in Howard-Smith, childhood friends and local products.
havent heard of josh smith wanting to go to orlando
I agree. But I think the Hawks would have to give up more to get Howard. I can see them give the Magic Horford, Teague, Pachulia and a future draft pick and getting Howard and maybe Earl Clark in return. Everyone wins, Hawks get a title seeking frontcourt and a solid Sf who can come off the bench. The Hawks get a top 5 Center when healthy, a starting caliber PG and an expiring contract and a future draft pick.
this blog all about josh smith and the hawks why you keep on injecting dwight howard into this. Dwight howard will go to Miami in exchange to haslem,turiaf,anthony and future round picks! he will play along with the king “LeBron” to get a ring!
wtf it’s all about josh smith and the hawks why you keep on injecting dwight howard into this. howard will go to miami in exchange to haslem,turiaf,anthony and future round picks. he will play with the king “LeBron” to get a ring!
Id take al horford over Dwight anyway… i wouldnt try getting in to the mix to bring d12 over because it just causes problems in the locker room. If you look at What Horford does.. its perfect for the Hawks.. he’s a big body, he can shoot, rebound, and play under the basket.. and on top of all that ..he hits his free throws. You dont have to worry about Al wanting more shots because he’s an efficient player and doesnt force it. On the other hand, Howard cant hit free throws, cant shoot well at all and his play under the basket is marginal.. he’s big and the rebounds are good but I think he uses up too many possessions. Thats just my opinion, D12 is a good player and all but, if you want to win a championship keep him off the team.. didnt show enough in orlando…he wont show enough in atlanta
Danny Ferry is dumb he didn’t get Amare at his prime to much himwith Lebron at CLE in order to keep JJ Hickson…WTF
Amare didnt want to go to cleveland…he wanted to go to New York 100%.
LMAO!!! who wants to go to cleveland???
ferry did a horrible job in cleveland.. he had 1 of the best players in the league and didnt put anything around him… anthony parker, hickson,old jamison, old shaq, larry hughes, delante west, mo williams, eric snow, joe smith, should i keep going?
I could see how a finals appearance and the best record in the league twice can be taken as “a horrible job”. Lebron is good, he aint good enough to win 60+ by himself 2 straight years. Who else should he have traded for (and keep in mind that the OTHER team would have to agree)?
lmaoo eaaaasy, they had one of the best defences in the league at the time, not too mention lebron had his finger on a lot of the decisions later on. Plus you got to admit mo williams was a good add. It was just another one of those times that the west was stronger than the east and lebron wasnt ready. He was a completely different player than compared to now.. this last season he didnt let up..which is why they won
IM A LEBRON AND HEAT FAN BUT HONESTLY, THE LAKERS SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN JOSH SMITH FOR PAU GASOL WHEN IT WAS ON THE TABLE. JOSH SMITH IS A PLAYER THAT CAN DO MULTIPLE THINGS REBOUND, DESTRIBUTE, AND EFFECT THINGS DEFENSIVELY.AKA LEBRON LOL.
THAT JOSH SMITH TO ORLANDO AND A MARVIN WILLIAMS AND SOME DRAFT PICKS SOUNDS GOOD, BUT LIKE THE ONE POST SAID I DONT KNOW IF JOSH SMITH IS WILLING TO GO THERE.
Marvin Williams isnt on Atlanta anymore (first sentence of the article).
Hawks #1 priority should be to keep J-Smoove. With him the Hawks have a better chance of alluring his best friend Dwight Howard.
Josh Smith’s best friend is not dwight.. Rondo on the other hand is
josh smith bestfriend is steve smith while dwight howard bestfriend is juwan howard
bottom line: josh puts butts in the seats at philips arena. you’d BETTER start building around him!
Keeping Josh Smith is huge……As much as people like Horford, Smoove is the show in Atlanta.
Are you people kidding me? I have been a hawks fan since I was five years old and a season ticket holder for years, Josh is a stubborn ball hog period. He has great talent but he does not have one superior skill set. He is not a prolific shooter, he can’t dribble, he is not a league leading rebounder, he is not a shut down defender, and the one thing he was great at (blocking shots as a help defender) he no longer does. Wake up people what kind of money do you think he will be asking for at the end of this season, he will be coming off a $50 million dollar deal, so he will want at least 85-90 mill and we will be right back in the same situation as we were with Joe Johnson. He won’t let Teague the POINT GUARD bring the ball up the court, and he won’t stop pulling that (Lord Please Let This Go In) jumper. TRADE HIM!!!!!!
My wish for the bulls
Pg: Rose
Sg: T. Evans
SF: J Smith
PF: Gibson
C: Noah
Teague
Hinrich
Butler
Mirotic
malcom thomas
i miss Asik already
belinelli
keep dreaming kid
I think the rockets should move for J-smoove they have the cap space and they waived scola so need to replace him
J-Smoove should go chill with my man Kid canada in LA for a few seasons
….if he wants to win that is!!
I’m surprised lbj hasn’t posted a trade to get Josh Smith on the Heat. Now no HTB article seems complete without a post from lbj…
Haha! Where are you today LBJ? J-Smoove for Juwan Howard perhaps?
no juwan howard is a veteran player he has a big role as a bench player. joel anthony can be and future round picks
“You always try to pick up the pieces before tossing them”
well said!!
Are you crazy? J-smoove and Howard is to much attitude, on the court that is. Keep Horford as well and do what else you have to do to pull the string for Howard. Even if you have pay taxes. Don’t you think it would be worth it. You will sale out every night. Rise up ATL.
Not sure if this is what Ferry is building to, but I could see a trade of…
Horford, Harris, Morrow, 2 x 2013 first round picks (Atlanta & Houston’s) for…
Howard and Hedo
Gives Altanta a starting lineup of…
Teague
Lou Williams
Turk
Smith
Howard
… so they just need to build a bench, much like the Heat
Orlando get rid of one big contract, get an all star calibre player, 2 expiring contracts and 2 first round picks.
(Another couple of smaller peices may be needed to ease it through, not sure how big a contract Harris has, $9m rings a bell – Stevenson, Petro, Pachulia, maybe even Jordan Williams or Jenkins)
(Even exchange Horford and Smith in this trade and it might still work, depends who Orlando want, put him back to his natural PF)
He wants to come to Boston after this season. He even said it publicly.
I love it. Josh Smith and Rondo, now there’s a dynamic duo. Phew, just thinking about those nice alley-oops makes me tingle inside. 2014 banner #18! no wait #19! do you have a link of that Smith article?
yes a dynamic duo that hoists up brick after brick after brick.
kinda reminds me of that Paramore song.
He should come to Philly when his contract is up…
This guy did a good job in Cleveland? That sure is news to me. Lebron bolting out with ‘The Decision’, countess millions of Gilbert’s money lost is the direct result of Ferry’s failures. Dan Gilbert shouldn’t hate Lebron, it was Ferry that showed Lebron the door so wtf Gil? That’s good ol’ Dan for ya though. Dumbest owner in NBA, hands down. At least he fired Ferry for surrounding Lebron with pure overpaid garbage so he must’ve figured it out, just too late. Kind of like Orlando surrounding their ‘can’t wait to gtfo’ superstar with overpaid garbage these past few years. Nobody’s saying Otis Smith did a good job. Yet, they did the same exact thing for their respective teams. Lost the star player with their inability to surround them with good talent and in result lost plenty of money for the organization they were running. And they get praised for this? Can I try this GM gig? Seems like even when you fail monumentally, you get thumbs up, millions of dollars and a new job doing the same thing. But why would the Hawks hire him? Is there a shortage of GM’s around the league? Why put a guy who failed into driver seat again? That’s just mind-bottling right there.
Yes, they won 60+ games in Cleveland during Ferry’s last years as GM. I guess that is considered an accomplishment for Cleveland. Everywhere else, if you win 60+ games a season and don’t win a title it’s considered a failure. Look at the Bulls. They’ve adopted the Cleveland model of surrounding mediocre players(better than CLE but still a LONG way to go) around their MVP and winning 60+ games a season. Same model, same result. Yes, DRose was hurt but if he was 100%, Bulls would’ve still lost. Not in the first round like they did but eventually it doesn’t matter. No trophy means fail.
Danny Ferry did a good job? WTF are you people smoking around here?
Trade Josh Smith PLEASE! He is a big baby and will become a constant distraction as soon as the team starts to struggle. Instead of being a leader he will throw tantrums like a 5 year old little girl and Dwight Howard is NOT coming to Atlanta so stop dreaming.
2013 – 2014 Season
Dallas Mavs
PF: Smith
PF: Dirk
C : Howard
Book it!
nvr going to happen book that
what?
I wouldn’t mind seeing Denver make a go. They have enough players to trade for him and still be a very deep team. Atlanta could use some of the talent Denver has as well. Problem would be to get Josh Smith to sign long term, but I imagine it wouldn’t be hard to sell him on the potential Denver has to win a championship. Especially if he becomes the “star” everyone says Denver needs.