Thomas B. Shea-USA TODAY Sports
Stan Van Gundy decided to cut his losses with talented forward Josh Smith midway through the 2014-15 NBA season, and it left quite a few teams questioning whether or not they should take a chance on him. There was one team that decided to go ahead and make the move to sign him, and that team was the Houston Rockets.
Needless to say, the Rockets made an excellent decision to give Smith a deal and let him prove himself again. He was a big part of their success down the stretch in the regular season and also helped them get through their first playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks. Unfortunately, their luck ran out against the future NBA champion Golden State Warriors.
Smith completely changed the perspective on him around the league, and the Rockets need to make sure that they re-sign the forward in free agency this offseason.
Now that he has proven himself to the rest of the NBA once again, the Rockets aren’t going to be the only team trying to lock him up. There are quite a few teams around the league that are in need of a quick and athletic forward, and Smith has shown the ability to play at a high level on both ends of the court. He can play either forward position, which is a skill that is very valuable to teams as well.
During the 2014-15 season with the Rockets, Smith ended up averaging 12.0 points, 6.0 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game in the 55 games that he played in. He also averaged 13.5 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.7 assists during their postseason run. Smith shot 43.8 percent from the field overall during the regular season, while also knocking down 33.0 percent of his three-point attempts.
At 29 years old, Smith played some of the best basketball of his career with the Rockets last season. It may not have been one of his best years from a statistical standpoint, but he was still playing under control and without question being an excellent teammate.
Looking ahead to the 2015-16 season, the Rockets would be wise to keep him on board alongside of Dwight Howard in the frontcourt. It will all depend on what type of price tag Smith is asking for to return.
James Harden needs players like Smith to help take pressure off of his shoulders. Assuming the Rockets are able to bring Smith back, they’ll have to work a bit better on running their offense through Harden and using Smith more as a role player. That is the only area that caused some issues between the two, but they are more than capable of being fixed.
Expect to see quite a few teams express interest in signing Smith when free agency opens up. He figured out how to put everything together at the end of last season, but there will still be question marks about whether or not he can continue doing that next season. That being said, the Rockets need to do everything they can to bring Smith back to pick up where they left off next year.
Evan Massey is a featured writer for www.RantSports.com, and contributes across the NFL, MLB, NCAA and NBA portions of the site. Follow him on Twitter at @Massey_Evan and like him on Facebook.
