The Detroit Pistons made big news on Monday when they used their stretch provision to waive Josh Smith from the team and essentially eat the $26 million owed to him over the next two season. While the payout will come over a five-year period, the team thought it was best to not have him on the team at all in the present and not have to give up assets in order for another team to trade for Smith. Smith will likely clear waivers and then be an unrestricted free agent, able to choose his next destination.
What was the reasoning for Van Gundy just letting such a talented but underperforming player go without any return? Van Gundy told the media the Pistons want to focus on the youth movement and reducing Smith's role in such an environment wouldn't have been fair to him. Had the Pistons been a much better record than the current 5-23, this move probably doesn't happen. From DetroitNews.com:
"The reason nothing was done in the summer…you've got to know your team and players before you start shipping people around," Van Gundy said after a two-hour practice Monday. "At that point, I didn't know. And I didn't anticipate this. We went into the season expecting to be much better. It hasn't worked out that way. To stay on the same course would be bad leadership."
"We are shifting priorities to aggressively develop our younger players while also expanding the roles of other players in the current rotation to improve performance and build for our future. As we expand certain roles, others will be reduced," Van Gundy said. "In fairness to Josh, being a highly versatile 10-year veteran in this league, we feel it's best to give him his freedom to move forward. We have full respect for Josh as a player and a person."
"It's a positive based on where we are now," Van Gundy said. "If we were .500 I would look at things differently. I wasn't looking to get rid of Josh Smith. I wanted to change some things with the group we have now with the young team we have."
The youth movement of the Pistons is likely to include more touches and responsibilities for Andre Drummond, Greg Monroe, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Drummond has struggled mightily in his first season under Van Gundy. The rebounding has been specatular (12.6 per game, 4.8 offensive), but his scoring is down to 12.4 per game and he's making a career low 48.2 percent of his shots as the Pistons try to turn him into a post threat.
Monroe, an unrestricted free agent in 2015 playing on a qualifying offer this season, has been solid at 14.7 points and 8.8 rebounds in 29.0 minutes per game. Playing him next to Drummond already creates some spacing issues for the Pistons and playing those two big men with Smith on the floor meant a lot of congestion on the floor. Caldwell-Pope, the second year guard out of Georgia, is averaging 12.5 points on 38.4 percent shooting. He was a good scorer in college but doesn't have the necessary rhythm on the floor so far to show off that talent.
Now with Smith gone, Van Gundy can focus more on these young guys and less on trying to make sure a veteran like Smith gets enough touches to keep him happy. It's probably a win for all parties involved.
