Sekou Smith Doesn't Know When Josh Smith Is Coming Back. Please Stop Asking Him.

This is everything a beat writer's blog entry should be:

If I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me that in the past two weeks, I’d take us all out for steak dinners and pick up the bill.

People ask me in hallways at Philips Arena, the Publix on Paces Ferry and Cumberland Parkway (the hottest hangout spot in town for family guys, ha!), in bathrooms (enough already), at the barbershop and in line the bank.

Scouts from other teams ask all the time, in the press room and even on flights; one did during take off Saturday on the way to Cleveland, wanting to know if Smith would be back in time for the game against his team this week.

My answer is always the same, “I honestly don’t know.”

Sekou also talks with Unnamed Scout about Smith as a defender:

"The thing with Josh is he’s a gambler. He’s always baiting people into shots that he can block or alter and that’s what makes him so effective. It’s also what drives coaches nuts, because it’s something they can’t control or coach him to do. And that frightens most coaches. I think it’s one reason he doesn’t get the respect he deserves as a defender and one reason why he’s always left out of the conversation of the best defenders in the league. But if you look at them without him out there, patrolling the baseline and protecting that rim, they’re a totally different team. They couldn’t even stop friggin Rasho [Nesterovic] and [Troy] Murphy [in Indiana last week]."

Go read the whole thing, which, if you're coming around here, you probably already have.