When the trade went down for J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert to be moved from the New York Knicks to the Cleveland Cavaliers, which also sent Dion Waiters to the Oklahoma City Thunder where he’s finding more opportunities to touch the ball, the trade was looked at with a ton of questions. One main question being, how will the Cavs star LeBron James and the ever problematic and interesting J.R. Smith coexist?
Well, don’t be too worried. Smith seems to have taken a step back and recognize who the real leader is in Cavs-land and even compares the difference between the leadership skills of LeBron James and the former star he played with in New York, Carmelo Anthony.
From Ethan J. Skolnick of Bleacher Report.
JR Smith on leadership: "Melo is more of an 'I'll show you,' as opposed to Bron is more of an 'I'll tell you, then I'll show you."
— Ethan J. Skolnick (@EthanJSkolnick) January 20, 2015
Another comparison between Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James, just adding to the debate. This doesn’t seem too crazy of a thought because of the fact that the players do have different styles of play. LeBron James is more of a facilitator at this stage of his career, finding the open man and making the offense move so he has to tell people what to do and then act on it. Carmelo is more of a player to create his own offense and let everyone build something off him, so there’s not much to instruct there.
Smith has found recent success in Cleveland though, in the last 6 games he’s played with the Cavs, Smith is averaging 17 Points on 45% shooting overall and 31.8 % from 3 point range, 2.8 assists, 3.3 rebounds and 1.8 steals per game.
Tonight might also help Smith’s numbers a little more when the Cavs take on the Utah Jazz, who are in the bottom 10 in the league in allowing the highest opponent field goal percentage.
