Josh Smith

The latest tweet by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports suggests that the three teams with the best chance of landing Josh Smith right now are Brooklyn, Milwaukee, and Phoenix. The Nets and Bucks have been in the Josh Smith rumors for a while now, while the Suns are one of the newer teams to get involved. Woj did not include in that tweet which players from the three teams might trade to Atlanta to land Smith.

After the Nets’ power forwards’ performances last night, Brooklyn GM Billy King might be more convinced now than ever to make a trade to acquire a more talented power forward. Both Kris Humphries and Reggie Evans struggled mightily in the Nets’ overtime win over the Bucks last night. The two teams play again tonight, and the chances are pretty high that this will be the last game for some of the players on one of the two teams. We will see if that has any impact on how both teams play in the game.

If the Nets do not land Smith, I have a feeling that they will trade for Ben Gordon of the Bobcats. The Humphries-for-Gordon offer is still on the table as far as we know, and it is pretty clear that the Nets want to trade Humphries in the next 24 hours. If the Nets cannot land Smith, expect another trade to be made to improve the team.

Josh Smith

In the latest update of the Josh Smith trade rumors, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports reports that the Brooklyn Nets are “solely focused on making a Smith deal”, meaning that they are not interested in any other trades. There were reports earlier in the day that the Atlanta Hawks believe that multiple teams are interested in acquiring Smith and the Hawks are confident that they will be able to move him by Thursday’s trade deadline. However, they have yet to decide where they want to trade him to.

According to the latest rumors, the Nets and Celtics have shown the most interest. However, the Celtics would likely need a third team involved if they want to trade for the forward. It is unclear whether or not the Nets need a third team and it is unclear which players the Nets would give up in a proposed trade. Whatever team does end up trading for Smith would expect to re-sign him in the offseason. He is still hoping to get a max contract of $90 million over 5 years, and we still don’t know whether a team wants to give him that money.

I have talked about these Smith-to-the-Nets rumors many times before and my opinion on the rumors hasn’t changed: if the Nets can get Smith for cheap (Marshon Brooks and Kris Humphries), why not. Go ahead and do the trade. However, I still don’t believe he is a great fit for the team and I would be happier if they instead traded for Paul Millsap or possibly did not make any trade at all. This team already has 30 wins and is one of the better teams in the east. Trading for Smith will not make them championship contenders overnight and I don’t know how much a trade like this will improve the team.