Detroit Pistons: Revisiting the decision to stretch Josh Smith

This coming season, Josh Smith’s contract would be coming off the books for the Detroit Pistons if he hadn’t been stretched. We’ll revisit Stan Van Gundy’s decision.

It seems like longer than four years ago somehow, but we’re nearing the anniversary of Josh Smith signing with the Detroit Pistons. It was a four-year deal worth $54 million, and not one bit of the deal played out the way either he, the organization or Joe Dumars (the president of basketball operations who signed him) planned.

The Pistons managed to get Smith after both his decline and his adoration of the three-point shot began. In his final two years with the Atlanta Hawks, he shot 44.2 percent from the field but just 28.1 percent from the three-point line. He also shot just 52.4 percent from the free throw line, and these were warning signs that Dumars and the Pistons organization failed to heed.

In Smith’s first season, he shot just 41.9 percent from the floor and a remarkable 26.4 percent from three-point range. He took 3.4 threes per game, a preposterous rate for one of the worst three-point shooters in NBA history.

His abbreviated second season was even worse. He hit 39.1 percent from the floor and 24.3 percent from three-point line. Over the course of his year-plus Pistons’ tenure, he had a true shooting rate of just 45.2 percent but dominated the ball, recording a usage rate of 24.7 percent. To put that in perspective, since the turn of the millennium, only Lance Stephenson, Adam Morrison, Kendall Gill, Rasual Butler, Ron Mercer, Jamaal Tinsley, Chris Porter and Michael Olowokandi have had worse true shooting rates with usages over 20 percent.

In effect, Josh Smith was a bottom-10 NBA player over the past 17 years, and the Pistons are in the process of paying him $54 million for that honor.

In December of 2014, Stan Van Gundy decided that enough was enough and that playing him further would be nothing but disastrous. The Pistons were 5-23 and an utter disaster. They weren’t just getting unlucky in close games, they were getting bombed off the floor, outscored by almost nine points per 100 possessions. There were some rumors that maybe the Sacramento Kings had interest in Smith, but whether those were false or Van Gundy simply waited too long to act, there was nobody for the Pistons to ship him off to.

Van Gundy opted to use the stretch provision to give Smith his release. Stretching a player takes the remaining years on his contract, multiplies it by two and adds a year. So the two years and $27 million left on his deal became $5.4 million paid out annually over five years. While his contract would have come off the books on June 30th had the Pistons not stretched him, in the current configuration he’ll be making $5.4 million every year until June 30th of 2020.

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In other words, if you started a four-year college program this past fall, you’ll graduate just a couple months before Josh Smith comes off the Pistons books.

Stretching Smith saved the Pistons about $8.6 million in both 2015-16 and 2016-17, allowing them space to sign Aron Baynes and Anthony Tolliver in the former year, both important depth pieces. In 2016-17, the Pistons utilized their Josh Smith cap savings by picking up Jon Leuer, Ish Smith and Boban Marjanovic.

While it’s debatable that those contracts may have been money well-spent, it’s better spent on them than on Josh Smith and his immovable contract. Thanks to the hefty bulk of guaranteed contracts on the Pistons’ books, the only thing that money is going to affect this offseason will be whether or not re-signing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope pushes them over the luxury tax threshold.

Next season will be similar, as KCP’s contract will mean the Pistons will have five contracts worth between $10 million and $27 million dollars, barring any trades involving the group of Andre Drummond, Tobias Harris, Reggie Jackson, KCP and Jon Leuer. In essence, stretching Smith reduced his onerous total to something of a nuisance, and one which should be fairly irrelevant if the Pistons are able to build a winner worthy of Tom Gores venturing into the luxury tax.

Next: What if the Pistons don't re-sign KCP?

In essence, Van Gundy was able to build the core he wanted without significant hindrance from the Pistons’ monstrous obligation to Smith. If that core bounces back next season, in time to stave off being split up and broken apart in favor of a rebuild, we’ll look occasionally with regret at Smith’s seemingly-eternal impact on this team. If the core gets off to a poor start, however, the Pistons will live to rue every part of Smith’s involvement.

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