Philadelphia 76ers: Doc Rivers can jumpstart Zhaire Smith’s career
The Philadelphia 76ers’ new head coach is exactly what Zhaire Smith needs for his career.
The Philadelphia 76ers a nice young core of outside of their two superstars in Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. Matisse Thybulle, Shake Milton, Furkan Korkmaz, and even Norvel Pelle are considered apart of that core, but one player has been left out of that core as of late.
Zhaire Smith should still be considered apart of the Sixers young talent. However, the 21-year-old wing came into the league as a very raw prospect and two years into his career, he’s still a very raw prospect.
Not all of that is on him nor former head coach Brett Brown. When Brown was in charge of the trade that acquired Smith on draft night, it would have been hard to imagine that Smith’s rookie year would have been derailed by two major health issues.
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His second year didn’t go much better as Brown kept Smith primary in the G-League to develop with the 76ers’ G-League affiliate the Delaware Blue Coats. There’s no denying that he’s made progress in Delaware, but Smith’s greatest value to the franchise right now might be as a trade piece to unload a terrible contract, like Al Horford’s deal for example.
Doc Rivers can save Zhaire Smith’s Sixers’ career.
However, the front office shouldn’t be so quick to offload Smith to another team. This is only because the team has moved on from Brown and has hired Doc Rivers in his place. Smith has a long way to go in terms of development, but Rivers can bring the best out of Smith sooner rather than later.
Rivers has been able to maximize a player’s strengths before. There are at least two perimeter defenders that Rivers has coached before where this is true. He developed both Tony Allen and Avery Bradley into elite perimeter defender during his Boston Celtics’ tenure.
Smith fits the profile of both wings. They all have natural defensive gifts physically, but they aren’t naturally great offensively. They are also all between 6-foot-3 and 6-foot-4. Considering that Allen was an elite defender during his career and Bradly still is at this point, the future could bright for Smith.
With defense being Smith’s primary skill, there shouldn’t be any reason why Rivers’ wouldn’t be able to use Smith as a defender and let the offense develop naturally. Before the front office decides if Smith can be a part of the future, it’s important to see if he can develop under a coach of Rivers’ stature.
Next. Let’s talk about a Griffin trade. dark
Smith has the potential to still be a part of the Philadelphia 76ers’ young future and Rivers can put the 21-year-old in the best position to do so.