NBA Free Agency Steal: Josh Smith to join the Clippers

Photo Credit to Troy Taormina

We currently are in the period where the NBA Free Agency market is dried out, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find an impact player. The Los Angeles Clippers may have found that certain player this afternoon when Forward Josh Smith agreed to join the team on the veteran’s minimum, due to the fact that the Clippers have no more exceptions and have little to no cap room. 

Smith, who arguably is one of, if not the greatest NBA player to not make an All-Star team reportedly chose the Clippers because he would be given a more “defined” role. The eleven-year veteran was released by the Detroit Pistons last December on a $54 million contract (Detroit used stretch provision), and will receive roughly $5.4 million per year from them all the way through 2019. 

After Smith was dismissed from Detroit, he joined the Rockets where he became a key player with a team that had a plethora of injuries. A career 28% shooter from three, he improved that mark to 33 percent and was a main reason the Rockets came back from the 3-1 series deficit against the Clippers in the Western Conference Semifinals. In Game 6, he was a big factor in a historic comeback where the Clips were up double digits. Smith finished that game with 19 points and 6 rebounds.

Logically, this made sense for Smith. In Houston, he would have had to fight for minutes with Terrence Jones and Donatas Motiejounas, who is now healthy. Now in Los Angeles, he will be behind Deandre Jordan and Blake Griffin, making arguably the best trio of bigs in the league. In addition to Smith, the Clippers have added Lance Stephenson and Paul Pierce to their squad, making them a very respectable team in the Western Conference.