20 Minute freewrite on Josh Smith

Sigh. I really thought I'd be able to sit on this for a few days, but now is as good a time as any to get this off my chest. I should note that my chest is pretty big so I've been holding a lot....
I hope Josh Smith leaves. Don't get me wrong I adore almost everything about Josh Smith, but this organization is inept and I do not want him to be locked in an untenable situation somewhere down the line. If I typed faster this would go a hell of a lot smoother. Anyway, a lot of the personalities in the town have decided that there's no market for Josh since he didn't get an offer. They love to point to Philly and L.A. and say see they wined and dined him and even they passed on him. What they fail to acknowledge are two very important things. 1 Elton Brand opted out. While I wouldn't have given him $90 million bucks coming off an achilles injury, he is a career 20 pt 10 rebound guy so I can see why Philly rolled the dice on that one. 2. The opportunity for L.A. to get Marcus Camby for literally nothing arose so of course they couldn't pass on that. It's not that Josh isn't worthy, it's that he's restricted. So, if they made him an offer they knew they'd risk having their money be tied up for a week while the inept Atlanta Spirit decided whether or not they were going to match it. I can see why they went in another direction, but others feel like its because Josh isn't worth it. Believe me they wouldn't have wined and dined him if they weren't genuinely interested. Elton Brand opting out couldn't have come at a worse time for Josh Smith.
Everyone in this town seem to think Josh has no right to not want to play for Coach Woodson. This irks me the most. Damn near his whole coaching staff left this offseason. Why do you think that is? Did they leave to become head coaches? Nope, they made lateral moves. Even they had the sense to try to get the hell away from Woody. A couple of them tried to leave last season, but since they were contractually obligated Billy made them stay. Larry Drew is still here, but Brett Lagree (Hoopinion) and I are in agreement about the fact that he must long to have the words Interim Head Coach attached to his name. I'll link to Brett's post later. If I forget remind me or just go to my worth a look section. I'm even more annoyed that EVERYONE is so quick to forget the last four years just because the Hawks took the stinkin Celtics to 7 games! Four years does not 2 weeks undo. Mike Woodson didn't all of a sudden become a good coach just because the Hawks managed to win 3 games against them for no other reason than the fans at Philips arena. If the Hawks were winning in spite of Woody (which I firmly believe they did) for the 82 games prior to the playoffs why the hell would they all of a sudden start winning because of him just because its the playoffs? He's not a good coach, I don't care what anyone says. And while we're talking about the celtics series that has everyone jaded, let's talk about the fact that not one time did they bother to show up against the Celtics in Boston. Not once. Alot of that was Woody's fault. Anytime one of the key starters picked up 2 fouls I knew we wouldn't see him again until the game was way out of reach and I assure you that's how the games in Boston played out. Everyone wants the players to trust the coach, but he didn't even trust his players enough to let them play with 2 fouls in the first half. Give me a break. My 2o minutes is almost up, but I'm far from done, at least I think I'm far from done so I'm going to go for 15 more minutes.
Joe Johnson is a very good player, but in real life he only averaged about 4 more points than Josh. So if you're going to tell me Joe is worth $14 million then surely Josh is worth 10 or 11 million. I mean, numbers do matter in this instance don't they? I don't understand how Josh Smith can bear the brunt of the responsibility for everything that ails this team when he's still on his rookie contract, while Joe gets to mosey on through season after season never taking any responsibility for the team's shortcomings. He's the max player on this team so if they aren't winning shouldn't he take a little heat for that. When the Lakers are losing Kobe gets the blame, when the LeBron's are losing people ask LeBron to do more, when the Rockets fail to get out of the first round time and time again, people blame T-Mac. They don't blame the role players. Somehow Joe has been able to escape all criticism. It's really mind blowing. I can't explain it. I swear I don't think the air conditioning is working right now. My glass of wine is getting extremely warm and as we all know you need to have a Moscato chilled. Anyway, back to the Atlanta Spirit. everyone wants us to believe that they are just playing their hand by literally doing nothing where either of the Josh's are concerned. Puhleeze. This group has been inept for many years now all of a sudden I'm supposed to believe they're 2 steps ahead of everyone else. Are you kidding me? They assured us that re-signing the Josh's was priority number one, so why do neither of them have a contract? Are they trying to lowball them? Particularly Josh Smith. Just because bad timing prevented him from getting the $55-65 million he deserves that doesn't mean he should sign with the Hawks for well under what he's worth. josh is undervalued in Atlanta from so many angles its ridiculous. I honestly don't think people understand how important he is/was to this team. Joe didn't do it by himself. One of the radio personalities said he doesn't think Josh plays hard every night. That's fine, but if him dogging it was only 4 points different than Joe playing his ass off then that leads me to one of two conclusions. Either he's way better than we give him credit for or Joe isn't nearly as good as we make him out to be. I mean if he has to play all out just to average 4 more points than a guy who only shows up half the time...... I love this Leona Lewis song playing in the background. I really should buy her album, or just download it. Back to Josh, I hope he doesn't let them lowball him. You are worth double digits don't let anyone tell you differently. Sign that one year qualifying offer, insure you legs and arms and anything else that is important to you being a successful basketball player (if J-Lo can insure her rump surely Josh can insure his legs.) Play out of your mind next season and about halfway through when you're averaging 20 and 10 and headed to the All star game come out publicly and let the Hawks know there is no way on God's green earth you are going to re-sign with them. Let it be known you won't be fielding emails or phone calls from anyone associated with the Atlanta Spirit llc. They had their chance to sign you for like 2 years straight and they decided to play wait and see so now they get to wait until the end of the season to see you go sign with someone else. Time.