Smith intrigues me, but I'm not sure he intrigues me enough.
This team absolutely needs some offensive punch off the bench, and there is no doubt that he would bring that. The guy can both shoot the three and slash, and his true shooting last season was off the charts (60.3 percent), making it hard to complain that he is an inefficient chucker, though he certainly does love to put the ball up.
At the same time, his attitude and myriad of personal problems make him quite a risk. His defensive reputation falls under the distinction of "can't be bothered to guard anyone," the Nuggets had to suspend him last summer, and he may be the only active player directly responsible for the death of another human being. While the defense is one thing (we saw the influence that the leaders on this team had a season ago, and there is certainly a chance to replicate that), there is no guarantee that it improves, and the off-court trouble seems to be a long-time pattern for Smith. He's likely too much of a risk for the money the Celts would need to put up (not even sure the MLE would do it), though it would be an interesting experiment.
If in fact we do, I believe he would be a great pickup, despite attitude problems (that were fostered in Denver, with role models like Carmelo and AI teaching how to behave. In highschool he was a quite congenial kid.).
PerkinsERA, I know very little of Smith's conduct in high school, so I'll defer to you on that one. But I do believe that his 'tude troubles started prior to Denver -- he had major issues with Byron Scott in New Orleans -- so I'm not sure we can hang this all on the Denver environment. Just wanted to clarify.
-sw
