In our ongoing NBA Front Office series, Tom Penn (general manager), Chad Ford (assistant GM), Amin Elhassan (scouting director) and Kevin Pelton (analytics director) are joined by NBA Front Office's senior consultant, David Thorpe. Today, the group weighs in on the Detroit Pistons waiving forward Josh Smith.
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Tom Penn: So let's first evaluate what we think happened in the Detroit Pistons' front office that motivated them to waive Josh Smith with two years and almost $27 million left on his contract.
David Thorpe: This is a gigantic case of emotion getting the best of the coaching side of Stan Van Gundy. If you had a true team president, he would be able to say, "Coach, if you don't want him part of the team we can leave him on the bus, we can leave him at home. But it's not the time to cut Smith. Just because we couldn't get a good trade for him up to now doesn't mean we won't have something by February. It's not your money. We just can't throw this away, and throw this potential asset away. We always have this option of waiving him later." The hit financially and in terms of assets, is a gigantic case of poor emotions and poor management.
Chad Ford: I agree with David. This only happens in the case where you have a general manager who's also the coach. However, for weeks the Pistons have been trying to trade Smith, and the only team that showed any interest was the Sacramento Kings. Two, I think the only trades they could've made might have even put them in worse shape financially down the road, would've taken draft picks or would've forced them to take back even more costly contracts than they currently had.
From a pure business standpoint, I think the Pistons are going to use the stretch provision; they're going to be able to stretch this contract out for five years and the $27 million that he has remaining. But they will go into the summer now with their draft picks intact, and they will be able to have more money to re-sign Greg Monroe if they want to. And they'll have enough money under the cap to sign another free agent. It's a huge hit to the owner, I think it was premature, but I do think in the long run it probably puts the Pistons in a solid position going forward.
