Smart is in tremendous shape right now. I mean I never thought he was ever out of shape. A player out of shape can't work as hard as Smart has shown.
But he has been able to take his body to another and can't wait to see how much more quickness/explosiveness he has now. How much more "everywhere" on the court he is going to be....what a nightmare for opponents
But the #1 thing the fans want to see is his 3 pt shot/overall FG percentage improve. Seeing drastic improvements on his FT last season (close to 80 percent), I have confidence his 3pt shooting should be better this season.
So before he has the best season of his career and his price tags balloons up (15 million plus a season). What about Danny locking him up as soon as possible
Smart and his camp may flat out reject a 4 year 12-13 million dollar a year deal but a little tweaks here and there... they may accept
On the premise they would accept.... should Danny aggressively offer him an extension now ?
A couple minor disagreements. 4/50 isn't cheap, that's about what he's worth right now. 4/40 would be cheap.
He was fat last year. He looked slow. Watching him drive to the hoop was like watching somewhere move through waist deep water. He couldn't finish because he had no lift. I don't think there's any thing wrong with saying it. Marcus Smart obviously thought he was overweight because he'd made it a big deal that he lost weight. The fact he lost weight is very encouraging and bodes well for the coming season.
FT% actually doesn't have much correlation with 3pt% at either the college or the pro level. Guys can shoot fairly well form the line and stink out to 3pt%. Smarts shot obviously needs some work, he's like a 30% shooter through 3 years. But his SHOT SELECTION also needs some work, guy needs to realize he shouldn't be shooting eight straight bad threes after one or two makes.
Marcus Smart may reject a 12 million dollar deal, but unless he shows improvement I find it unlikely he gets more than that after the season. Salary cap space league wide had dried up.
I was going to do a write up, but you just wrote up everything I was going to say. So I'll just give you a TP instead!
And yes, Smart already admitted that he was 240 pounds last year. 6'3" / 240 lbs is disgraceful for an NBA PG, and at that weight it's no wonder he often struggled so much to keep up with quicker guards.
My problem with locking smart up in a double figure contract is that I'm not honestly convinced that he has the raw talent to ever be a quality starter in the NBA. I think he can be a good 6th man on almost any team, and can be a nice 5th starter on very specific teams (ones that already have plenty of shooting/scoring) but he's just not one of those guys who you could just throw in to any starting lineup and watch him flourish (such as a Crowder or Avery Bradley could). That means that IMHO, if you are competing for a title in absolute seriousness, you probably want to have Smart coming off the bench.
Even just $10M/yr is a lot of money to play for a bench player when the cap is $99M and you already have about $88M committed to three guys (or at least will do when Kyrie's deal runs out). in 2-3 years we will need to be thinking about what to do with Tatum and Brown as they are coming off their rookie deals, and by the last thing you want to do is push yourself into a position where luxury tax penalties make you have to consider letting on of those two guys walk all because you decided to extend Marcus Smart a few years back.
If I am Danny I am not offering Smart a think until he can go out there and prove (with some consistency) that he has made some legitimate progress, and that there is still untapped potential in the tank...because the last three seasons his game has not changed one iota. I would give him until maybe just before the all-star break, and if he can at least show flashes of improvement, then fine, give him the deal. If not, then hold off.
Poll
Topic: Lock up Smart now for cheap (poll) (Read 4940 times)