Could the Sacramento Kings trade for Josh Smith?

Most felt Josh Smith’s disastrous first season in Detroit would render him untradeable, but the Pistons may have found an amenable partner in the Sacramento Kings. The two teams have reportedly discussed several variations of a deal that would send Smith to northern California, according to ESPN’s Marc Stein:

Detroit’s perspective is clear. The jumbo frontcourt of Smith, Greg Monroe and Andre Drummond failed miserably, with Smith submitting the worst season of his career. Smith was miscast as a perimeter player, insisted on firing away from the perimeter despite a horrible conversion rate and showed no effort defensively. Monroe is a restricted free agent, so if the Pistons want to keep him, it pays to see if anyone will take Smith so that frontcourt trio gets broken up. What Detroit gets back probably doesn’t matter, because this is addition by subtraction. In fact, SB Nation’s Detroit Bad Boys suggested a similar Smith trade back in April.

This makes less sense for the Kings, but you can see why they may be talking themselves into it. As SB Nation’s Kings blog Sactown Royalty writes:

Sacramento is slated to approach the luxury tax even though they won just 28 games last year, so it’s not like they can sign impact players in free agency. The No. 8 draft pick is nice, but it’s hard to find a star at that spot. Three players averaged 20 points a game for them last year -- emerging young big man DeMarcus Cousins, free-agent point guard Isaiah Thomas and midseason acquisition Rudy Gay -- but the rest of the roster is very shallow and has a number of bad contracts. Consider that Thompson and Carl Landry, two power forwards who did little for the Kings last year, will make nearly $51 million combined through 2017, only $5 million less than Smith. Thus, the Kings may need to gamble on Smith’s talent to move up in the West.

And if Sacramento can acquire Smith just for dead weight on their cap sheet, it might be an example of buying low on a troubled, but talented player. The Grizzlies stole Zach Randolph away in 2009 using a similar strategy in a deal with the Clippers that was ripped by many critics. Five years later, they’ve clearly gotten the last laugh. Smith is turning 29 in December and has produced at an All-Star level during his career. Perhaps he regains that form in a different setting.

Problem is, the Kings can at least sit Thompson, Landry or Terry, or move them in less notable salary dumps if they continue underperforming. Given his large salary, Smith will have to play alongside Gay and Cousins, and there’s only one ball to use between them. Calling it an awkward fit would be very kind, though I suppose it has a low bar to climb when compared to the Smith/Monroe/Drummond combination in Detroit. And for the privilege of pairing this mismatched frontcourt together, the Kings would owe the trio $46.5 million next year, or about 70 percent of the salary cap. That’s an absurd amount of money, and they’d still have plenty of dead weight on the books.

As for Detroit ... well, there’s not much to say here. They should be trying desperately to trade Smith.

I’m sure these teams indeed discussed different Smith trade scenarios, because that’s exactly what teams are supposed to do internally. Obviously, it’s highly likely the Pistons are indeed trying to trade Smith. It’s also possible that Sacramento, headed by an owner in Vivek Ranadive that hasn’t shied away from big moves in his brief tenure, is considering buying low on Smith in tandem with moving the No. 8 pick for immediate help in an attempt to make the playoffs in the deep Western Conference.

But eventually, I suspect sense will prevail in Sacramento to kill this deal before it happens. 4 out of 10.