Saturday, August 15, 2009

ESPN.com: Source: Hawks Sign Joe Smith

ESPN reports that Ric Bucher reports:
Joe Smith has agreed to a one-year deal with the Atlanta Hawks for the veteran's minimum, a source told ESPN's Ric Bucher on Friday.
As I've written before, Smith is a fine insurance policy and a plausible source of leadership, locker room presence, choose your own intangible descriptive. Practically speaking, he shouldn't, as the third center, be expected to play a lot, and, assuming that the fifth big man turns out to be Othello Hunter or someone similar, Al Horford and Marvin Williams appear set to share the power forward minutes left over after Josh Smith gets his share.

3 comments:

Jack Bender said...

I like this signing for the Hawks because Smith can do something that none of the other three bigs can do and that is score from the high post area out to 18 feet. He will play around 20-25 minutes a game at center and PF. I do not see Marvin playing many PF minutes. Keep in mind Woody loves to play veterans. Smith is great for Woody because it gives him a solid and serviceable player to play when he needs to keep Josh Smith on the bench to prove a point.

Bret LaGree said...

If the team's fourth-best big man plays 1800 minutes it's going to be a long season.

Jack Bender said...

In the past two years with the Cavs, Smith played in 48 games and averaged around 20 minutes per game. They did all right. In the last 5 minutes of a close game, I would argue Smith is your 2nd best big man. Today, he is a better offensive player in the low post and the high post than any of the other three bigs likely in the rotation. Of the 4 who would you rather take a clutch jump shot or throw it on the block? I mean Zaza, Josh?