Josh Smith is finally off the Detroit Pistons books after the team stopped paying him following his waiving in 2014. The Pistons signed Smith as part of one of the worst rebuilding attempts in the NBA in recent years back in 2013 but as you may know now, that didn’t work out for the team and they had to get rid of Smith, even though they kept paying him millions until this year.
Smith signed a four-year, $54 million deal with the Pistons in 2013. After just one season in Detroit, he was waived by the team but they used a different strategy to pay him the rest of his contract. They took the two years (about $27 million) that was left on his deal and made them $5.3 million paid out over five years.
Those five years have ended this 2020 when the Pistons paid him his last $5.3 million and can finally forget about Smith and his contract, although it’ll be harder to forget about his disastrous stint in the Motor City.
Just took Josh Smith off the Detroit Pistons cap sheet for 2020-2021 and moving forward. Truly the end of an era.
— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) May 8, 2020
The Pistons just stopped paying Josh Smith for his contract after they waived him in 2014.
Also almost been out of the league for 3 years.
My god.
— /r/Lakers (@LakersReddit) September 18, 2020
In his first season with the team, Smith averaged 16.4 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game. Ever since he was waived, he made around $26,658,645 just to not play for the Pistons once again. That is not how he would’ve liked his career to end, but he got paid basically for not playing.
