A Warning to Well Intentioned Pacer Fans

First appeared on April 24th, 2013
in The Lebanon Reporter

Standing 6 feet 9 inches tall and weighing 225 pounds, Josh Smith is a big man. As someone who boasts career highs of 38 points, 22 rebounds, 11 assists and 10 blocks, Josh Smith can be scary good. And you probably don’t need me telling you anyone with the nickname “J Smoove” is clearly capable of world domination in anything, anytime, anywhere.

The AP’s recount of his performance in the opening round of the Playoffs so accurately summarized the life-giving bolt of invigoration Smith’s game can be, “He scored 15 points and grabbed 8 rebounds in Atlanta’s 107-90 defeat”. Talk about world domination indeed.

So it begs the question, after Smith was so lackluster in Sunday’s loss, why would anyone in the non-Atlanta media be quick to call him out? Mike Wells of the Indy Star said “The more jumpers Smith takes…the less likely the Hawks will win” and Pacer Blogger Conrad Brunner bluntly declared “Josh Smith is the worst good player I’ve ever seen”.
If Smith wants to go through the motions defensively and fire up long jump shots early in the shot clock, who are we to tell him no?

What do we care? We’re not Hawks fans or “Smoovers and Shakers” (Affectionate nickname given to card carrying members of the “J-Smoove” fan club; only a guess here). What do these people want? Are they hoping Smith drops 40 on the Blue and Gold? Do they want the Pacers’ first round match up to be more than a tune up? Clearly they’ve never dealt with anyone younger than ten years old.
The Hawks are a shell of a playoff team and Smith is the only person capable of making them as un-shell like as possible.

As Pacer fans, rather than tearing Smith down, now is the time we should be building him up. Telling him he’s the best 30% Three Point shooter we’ve ever seen and asking him to sign the ball we caught after another one of his errant passes has rocketed over a teammates hands before landing in our laps.

We should let him know the fact he led the Hawks in turnovers for a second straight season simply means his teammates need their vision checked or may have to actually click on a link and read something when he’s told them to Google “How to catch a basketball” for the twentieth time. He needs to hear that his 50% shooting from the foul line this season is more than enough justification to stand 30 feet from the basket and hoist jumpers until his shoulder goes numb or the rest of his teammates have lost interest, walked off the court and tweeted #neverplayingbasketballagain from the locker room.

In short Smith is a sleeping giant, let him rest. He’s the only person capable of making this series longer than it needs to be. If Pacers fans are lucky, Smith will continue pretending to play hard and Hawks fans will continue to pretend to care when their team loses. He’s a Five Tool player, the only problem for Atlanta right now is that Smith’s five tools are scoring, rebounding, defending, ball handling and only performing on the third Tuesday of every other month.

Perhaps most amazing of all is the fact Smith is finishing a contract year. But there’s no time for second guessing. Let’s all quietly bear witness now, for the day is coming when we’ll sit our children down to tell them how we watched J Smoove doin’ work. Of course that will require a complete transformation of the word ‘work’, but you’ll figure something out.

© 2013 Eric Walker Williams