LeBron James: Former No. 1 picks who were his teammates in his career
By Ronald Agers
Joe Smith actually has an asterisk next to his name on this list. He actually played with LeBron James twice!
The first No. 1 overall pick that LeBron James played with during his career was Joe Smith while he was in Cleveland.
Smith was acquired via trade from the Chicago Bulls in 2008. He shares a place in the NBA record books with Tony Massenburg, Chucky Brown and Jim Jackson as the only players to play for 12 different teams. Joe Smith gets the honor on this list of being the only player to have played with LeBron on two different occasions.
The Golden State Warriors made Joe Smith the No. 1 overall pick out of Maryland in 1995. In 2008, he first teamed up with LeBron as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers. He only played 27 games in his first tour of duty (starting one) scoring 8.1 points with five rebounds.
Smith left after the season to join the Oklahoma City Thunder before returning to finish the 2008-09 campaign in Cleveland. As a teammate of LeBron’s, Smith averaged 7.4 points and 4.9 rebounds while also appearing in 26 postseason games over those two years.
Sadly, Joe Smith will be remembered for the Minnesota Timberwolves scandal when he turned down an $80 million contract from the Warriors to sign with Minnesota for a one year $1.75 million deal. Red flags were raised and the Timberwolves paid a stiff penalty when they got caught.
Joe Smith was a journeyman pretty much for the rest of his career.
Speaking of journeymen. Let’s talk about the BIG JOURNEYMAN!