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Josh Smith: 'I just try to take the best shot possible'

Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

It was an appropriately baffling season for Josh Smith, a polarizing, enigmatic player whose raw talent is about as well-regarded as his decision-making is maligned.

Smith was so disappointing in the second year of a four-year, $54-million contract with the Detroit Pistons that the Pistons made the virtually unprecedented decision to waive him, using the stretch provision to spread the remaining salary owed over five seasons. In other words, they're paying him not to play for them until 2020.

The move paid immediate dividends for the Pistons, who won their first seven games after waiving Smith and finished the season 27-27 without him, after starting 5-23. They were a staggering 13.1 points per 100 possessions worse with Smith on the floor, and when he played the whole team shot an effective field goal percentage of 44.4, per Basketball-Reference. To put that in context, the Charlotte Hornets finished the season dead last in the NBA in that category at 45.6 percent.

Smith's shot selection and shooting ability had always been somewhat out of whack, but he reached a nadir with Detroit this season, shooting 39.1 percent from the field and 24.3 percent from 3-point range.

And yet, Smith's season ultimately became an argument for the benefits of changing scenery and finding the right fit.

Smith was quickly scooped up by the Houston Rockets on a one-year deal, and became a crucial cog off the bench for an ultimate Western Conference finalist. Where he'd been frequently slotted in as a small forward with the Pistons, playing in a crowded frontcourt with Andre Drummond and Greg Monroe, Smith almost exclusively played the four in Houston.

He validated the Rockets' faith in him by upping his efficiency across the board; the Rockets were 6.6 points per 100 possessions better with him on the floor.

He seemed to complete his resurgence in the playoffs, where he somehow shot 38 percent on 6.5 3-point attempts per game, and keyed one of the greatest comebacks in postseason history.

"I just try to take the best shot possible - to not force anything or rush anything," Smith told Grantland's Charles Bethea after the Rockets' season ended Wednesday. "I play very instinctively within the flow of the game. When you think too much about what a coach wants, you overthink situations and mess with how things progress in the game."

That's one way to look at it.

Some would argue shots like this one - which Smith launched with 20 seconds on the shot clock, when his team was on the very cusp of taking its first lead of the second half in Wednesday's elimination game - aren't the best available.

g33's post on Vine

But Smith is a player with whom you have to be willing to take the good with the bad. He launched 14 shots in 20 minutes in Game 5, and hit just three. In the Rockets' season-saving Game 4 win, though, he hit 7-of-8, scored 20 big points, and added six rebounds and five assists.

His passing out of the post and as a ballhandler in unconventional four-five pick-and-rolls was a key ingredient to the Rockets' surprise postseason run.

"I feel like I have top-10 talent," Smith says. "Most guys will say that, though. You definitely have to have confidence in the profession that I’m in."

Suffice to say, if the Rockets opt not to re-sign Smith this summer, it won't be due to his flagging confidence.

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