The Rockets recently seem to insist upon adding veterans who spend a lot of time being injured. Some, like Steven Adams are probably worth it, as long as the team isn’t absolutely relying on him being around (it is – see Stone at Media Day). Adams has a particular set of skills that are unmatched in the NBA – offensive rebounding, screening, and generally causing pain through his very presence.
Wait, this is a Marcus Smart preview, right?
TL:DR Rockets Summer Signings Besides Chip Engelland:
Yes it
IS a Marcus Smart preview!
Marcus Smart will turn 33 in season. Over the past five season, he’s played in an average 49 of 82 available games. That’s pretty back loaded, though, as in the past three seasons that number falls to 38, mainly on the strength of 62 games played for the Lakers last season. Perhaps that trend will hold, but at 33, it’s possibly not the bet to make.
So, like Adams, if you are counting on his presence, his injury history suggests this might be a mistake. Injuries can happen to any player, but patterns of being injured tend to repeat.
Then there’s the “particular set of skills”. In Marcus Smart’s case, this has always been the question. He’s a 6’3”, 220lb SG/PG. He’s in essence undersized for SG, and under skilled for PG, and we have 13 seasons of evidence here. He’s not a good enough shooter to make up for that. Smart is a career 32% three-point shooter, and last season shot it at 33% for the Lakers, which to be fair, is 2.5% better than Alperen Sengun, who also plays as a guard at times. Smart IS a good free throw shooter, at about 80% for his career, which would be great if he averaged more than 2.4 FT per game.
Why do I bring this up? Because this free throw number is suggestive of a player who can’t get to the rim, or the FT line. Yet another player who can’t get to the rim is probably not an optimal signing for the Rockets, but let’s look for the silver lining.
He’s PG sized, so he must be a good PG, right? Well, no. Over the past three seasons, Smart’s assist numbers have fallen down a crevasse. This isn’t crazy for a guard in his 30s, but a decline from around 6 assists per game to about 3 over the past three seasons isn’t encouraging. I’m not cherry picking here. Last season Smart averaged 3ast/1.5to, the year before 3.2ast/1.6to, and the year before that, 4.3ast/3.1to. Boston used him as a PG, but there’s not a lot about his career there to make you long to see him as your main backup PG. (Amen Thompson averaged 5.3ast/2.4to in his first NBA attempt at being a primary distributor, this is 1 ast below Smart’s career high in Boston (same number of TO at age 28.))
I won’t go further into how much better players who were, or are, on the roster are at being point guards or playing offense, as in a real way, that’s not Smart’s calling card.
Smart’s calling card has been defense, and he’s been known throughout his career as a tough, tenacious, dirty, and histrionically inclined defender. He even won DPOY. (But he would have never won it if he didn’t play for Boston. Imagine Smart winning that award for Orlando, say.) Maybe the theory is he’ll bring back the edge that Dillon Brooks seemed to take with him to Phoenix. Perhaps he will. If so, great. If so, that’s a great signing, and I’ll admit to it, and possibly throw a small parade.
At 33, though, it’s hard to see him as a real stopper. The numbers, compared to his mid career, suggest he isn’t, anymore. According to most metrics over the past few seasons of his career, Smart is a mildly positive defender, and a significantly to mildly negative offensive player. If you compare his past couple of seasons with say, Aaron Holiday, it’s a dead heat, except Smart can’t shoot it. So, really, perfect for Ime Udoka, because Smart is also a league leader in mean mugging and looking intense.
In the end, there probably wasn’t a better signing to be a token of Ime Udoka’s defensive fetish and to fill the gaps he possibly believes he has on the team. Smart will probably play that role pretty well. The problem here is, Smart might well be the primary backup point guard. Hopefully Fred VanVleet’s offense will recover from his last season playing, otherwise, in such a case, the Rockets will be playing a PG rotation that can only be counted as mildly positive in terms of their own offense, at best, for 48 minutes.
The Rockets problem wasn’t defense, it was clutch scoring late, and serious guard play. I simply can’t see Smart, especially at 33, addressing that problem, despite probably having a few good games doing it. Yet I think we’re going to see a lot of him. Unless he’s hurt, which he often is.
I wish I could be happier about it, but the Smart signing to me represents a fundamental lack of awareness as to what the actual problems are, and signals a doubling down on “Defense First” dogma. Did the Rockets address not having a guard who could get to the rim, and force a defense out of the paint? In Marcus Smart and to an extent Bogdan Son of Bogdan, they absolutely did…not. The Rockets didn’t lose the last two playoff series because they couldn’t defend. They lost because they couldn’t score, and it’s hard to see how Marcus Smart helps with this.
Bright side: the Rockets bench should be better than last season, but not as much as some might think.
