Josh Smith: 'Harder' on family with lower salary

Pete, are you still playing Sunday at O'Leary's?

Would you and Donna like to go out to dinner with Kathleen and me some night?

Worcester,

Yes 12-3. That would be great.

Pete

According to Basketball reference.com Smith has earned almost $94 Million in his career.

so lets assume he used half that on taxes, player agent costs , union dues, etc.

he's still have $47M to spend on the past 10 years and SAVE for his future living expenses.

if ANY person can't live on $2M a year after taxes, they are idiots.

Josh Smith will really be the next A. Walker, poor little rich boy who spent through all his money...I have to sympathy at all.

RosalieTCeltics wrote:Ghe said he had a certain was of living,maids, other help, gee tough to give those things up, huh

oh wel.....thats different then.....LOL.

I've been hearing a different take on this, that he was talking about hardship from living apart from his family, not money. Here's the quote:

It wasn't about the money because of the Detroit situation. But at the end of the day, you know, I do have a family. So, it is going to be a little harder on me this year. But I'm going to push through it and try to do long-term after this year.

He actually says that money wasn't an issue. When he said it was going to be harder on him this year, he said that in reference to the fact that he signed a one-year deal instead of a long-term deal, and that the stability that comes with a long-term deal will be what helps.

He got married in 2010 while still in Atlanta, and he and his wife have three kids. He signed a four-year deal with Detroit in July 2013 as a free agent. Then, on December 22, 2014-15 (partway through his second season in Detroit), the Pistons waived him. He signed on December 26 with Houston for the rest of 2014-15. In July, he signed a one-year deal with the Clippers.

I have no idea where his family lives or how many times they've moved, but a reasonable scenario is that they lived in Atlanta, moved to Detroit in 2013 in the expectation of being there for four years, stayed in Detroit rather than move to Houston, and now have to make a decision on whether to move to LA, in which case they may be moving again in a year. In the quote above, when he talks about it being harder on him, it's far more likely that he was referring to the hardship of living away from his family or making his family move to LA with the strong possibility of moving again in a year. I don't think he's referring to the money. Bill Plashke of the LA Times said that, after running a column ripping Smith for sounding out of touch regarding money, he got an email saying that Smith was talking about the hardship of being away from his family, not money.

I'm not a fan of Smith as a basketball player, but I think there's a good chance that he got a raw deal on how this thing has been portrayed.

A wise man once said, " Judge not, lest ye be misinterpreted by others."

Sorry to revive this dying thread. I don't even like Josh Smith, but I felt the article thart spwaned this thread was a cheap shot. Here is what Josh had to say:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/josh-smith-greedy-comments_55bb7f2ae4b0d4f33a025c15?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

 Josh Smith took to The Players' Tribune on Thursday to clarify comments he made about his salary last week -- comments that garnered a few eye rolls.

Smith, who signed a one-year, $1.5 million contract with the Los Angeles Clippers in early July and is currently owed $5.4 million by the Detroit Pistons, caught a wave of criticism after calling his move to Los Angeles "a little harder on me this year."

Some people were less than sympathetic toward the basketball player, who in The Players' Tribune wrote that it's not just money, but the challenges of heading to a new city yet again, that's tough.

"This is my third team in less than a year. I was talking about how moving affects my family. But the headline about greed was the one everyone ran with," Smith wrote, adding, "Let’s just look at what I actually said so we don’t get it twisted."

His "harder" comments were interpreted as if he was complaining about making significantly less money than he had in previous contracts, which sent Twitter, and even HuffPost, into a rich-guy shaming-spree:







But Smith wrote that the challenges he faces with work are the same as any other family that's relocated for a job.

"Like any parent, you think about how your work affects your kids. You want consistency for your kids -- consistent teachers, consistent friends, a consistent home. You want some normalcy for them," Smith continued.

To Smith's credit, he didn't take offense to anything that was written or said about him. He took the high road in his rebuttal, which is what one would expect out of an 11-year NBA vet. Smith knows the ropes.

"Every athlete has had articles about them that aren’t 100 percent true. Most of the time, it’s not anyone’s fault -- it’s just the reality," he wrote.  

Sorry, the twitter posts embedded in the article didn't make it - you will have to click on the link if you want to see them