Josh Smith trying to show he's a man of many talents

Josh Smith had at least five blocks in five of his first 13 games. Doug Benc/Getty Images

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Long before he had any idea how to carry himself on an NBA court, Josh Smith was a dunker. He was so talented in the air that he won the All-Star Slam Dunk contest as a 19-year-old rookie in 2005. But the award engraved his reputation as an athlete who didn't know how to play below the rim.

"I feel like whoever wins the Slam Dunk contest, they get that label,'' Smith said. "That's why I got in the gym and got those extra shots up, just to be able to get the critics off my back to stop saying that all I do is dunk.''

At that time, of course, the critics were right. Smith was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks with the No. 17 pick from Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, Va.), which he led to a No. 1 national ranking (38-0) while setting a school scoring record. Today, because of the NBA's age requirement, he would be forced to fulfill his original commitment to enroll at Indiana as a freshman in college. Back then, however, he not only jumped straight to the NBA but also averaged 27.7 minutes for a horrid team that won 13 games.

"I came in not knowing anything,'' he said. "I'd get in the game and I needed help all the time.''

Now the 6-foot-9 Smith is in his fourth year, and the investment in teaching him the hard way is starting to pay off. Through Thursday he was averaging an impressive array of 16.9 points, 7.4 rebounds and 3.7 assists with 2.0 steals and a league-leading 3.8 blocks. Since he clinched a win at Miami last week with a block of Dwyane Wade in the final seconds, Smith has averaged 5.3 blocks over his last three games -- two of them wins for the improving Hawks, who were 6-8 entering Friday's game at New Orleans.

Of course, there are still plenty of holes in his game. Too often he lustily goes for the block at the expense of playing solid defense, earning a share of blame for the Hawks' No. 23 ranking in field-goal defense (46.3 percent), and he still tends to swing at the ball as if the aim is to block a shot out of bounds rather than tip it to himself or a teammate. He still wanders out to the three-point line a couple of times per game even though he's converting 19.2 percent from there, and his overall 36.3 percent shooting betrays a poor selection.

But on the whole Smith has come an awfully long way, especially considering that he's never had much elder guidance in Atlanta. Though he's almost a full year younger than rookie Acie Law, Smith tries to counsel the Hawks' new point guard.

"I worked out with Calvin Murphy and Hakeem Olajuwon this summer, so I got great advice from them and they taught me different things they did to get by in this game,'' Smith said. "I may be 21, but I've been around. I'm not saying I know everything. I have a whole lot to learn, but when the rookies come in I'm able to tell them things that I've been through and I have faced. I look at them and I'm having flashbacks when I used to make those mistakes in different situations.''

When (or if) Smith turns into a disciplined 26-year-old who knows when to shoot, pass and go for the block in the best interests of his team, then he will escape the forbidding label of Slam Dunk champion. Until then, he'll continue to hear the tsk-tsks of those who view him as a promising but unrefined athlete who is still learning on the job.

"It is a curse,'' Smith said of the Slam Dunk label, "but it's also a blessing to be able to do that at a young age. You can't always listen to what people say about you because you'll go nowhere doing that. You're going to always have critics as long as you play the game. Michael Jordan has had them, Kobe Bryant -- the elite players have had critics.

"I think I would tell them to go ahead,'' he said of potential Slam Dunk contestants like New Jersey's Sean Williams or Philadelphia's Thaddeus Young. "If you feel like you can win it, just be ready for the negative criticism.''

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