Zhaire Smith’s short, highly eventful stint in Philadelphia is over.
On XX day, the Sixers traded Smith [XXX trade details].
[[XX brief analysis of trade/Smith’s role in it]]
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SIGN UP HERE The Sixers acquired Smith on the night of the 2018 NBA draft, sending Mikal Bridges to the Phoenix Suns in exchange for Smith and a 2021 first-round pick. They eventually used that pick in their trade last February for Tobias Harris, Mike Scott and Boban Marjanovic.
During his time as a Sixer, Smith only played in XX NBA games. He suffered a broken foot in August of his rookie year and endured severe complications from an allergic reaction in September that caused him to lose over 35 pounds. Once he got out of the hospital, he was so eager to return to basketball that he put up shots with feeding tubes in his stomach. The form on his jumper changed during that time as he compensated for his weight loss, though Smith reconstructed his shot and regained his explosive athleticism.
Smith never became a regular contributor for the Sixers, both because of those unfortunate off-court circumstances and because he’s a 20-year-old learning new skills at the professional level.
“I feel like I’ve improved a lot,” he said on Jan. 20. “Especially last year — last year was kind of like rehab. But looking back to my freshman year of college, I feel like I’ve made a big jump. I feel like I’m improving. … Shooting, ball handling and just being confident. Especially playing the guard position. Looking back at Texas Tech, I was playing the four and three. So, [now] I’m on the wing and I’m improving. It’s coming quickly.”
NBA
The team decided to pick up Smith’s third-year option for $3.2 million in October, so he’ll be under contract with the XX team for the 2020-21 season. XX city will then need to decide whether to exercise Smith’s fourth-year option.
Brett Brown was the Sixers’ interim general manager when the Sixers traded for Smith. He said Smith had “a base that’s really special and very unique” and saw similarities with Kawhi Leonard.
“Some of those qualities that Kawhi had when we first brought him to San Antonio, I do see parts of that in Zhaire,” he said.
Leonard is a player Smith admires. He even said with a smile last May, “I’ll probably be better than him. I’ll try.”
It seems very unlikely Smith will reach that level in the near future, or that the Sixers could expect him to soon be a reliable rotation player.
Still, Smith is not a lost cause. He’s a “pogo stick” of an athlete determined to get better, but the Sixers ultimately decided that his development didn’t align with their urgency to contend.
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