Philadelphia 76ers: 3 potential landing spots for Zhaire Smith

Let’s find a new home for ex-Philadelphia 76ers wing Zhaire Smith.

Zhaire Smith gets a lot of unnecessary hate from Philadelphia 76ers fans.

Yes, the decision to trade Villanova legend Mikal Bridges to the Phoenix Suns for Smith and the Miami Heat’s 2021 unprotected first round pick was a head-scratcher and will easily go down as one of the worst trades in Sixers’ history, but that’s on Brett Brown. Smith didn’t ask to be drafted 15th overall, didn’t ask to almost die from eating sesame seeds at the team’s facility, and didn’t ask to get buried in the depth chart in the G-League. Surely he too wishes he would have played more than 13 games in a red, white, and blue uniform through his first two NBA seasons, but alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

By trading Smith to the Pistons for fourth-year center Tony Bradley, the Sixers gave the still-only-21-year-old wing a chance to reset his career on a rebuilding team outside of the most vicious media market in the nation.

Well, at least that was the idea.

Mere weeks into his tenure with Detroit, news broke that Smith was going to be waived. On paper, this made sense, as Smith makes roughly $500,000 less than Bradley. If the plan was to release Bradey after loading up on centers in both the draft and free agency, why not trade him to an interesting team and save a little money in the process?

Sidebar: Do you think Smith ever actually went to Detroit? I mean, he was waived before training camp, so it’s possible that he joins Danny Green in that exclusive club of players who were traded to a team but never actually ‘joined’ it.

But hey, don’t feel too bad for Smith. Sure, it stinks to be released, but if he clears waivers, he’ll have an opportunity to sign wherever he likes and attempt to relaunch his career in the best possible scenario. But where could that be? Needless to say, I have a few ideas.