Clippers trade Josh Smith, Lance Stephenson must be next

Now that the Los Angeles Clippers have acted by trading Josh Smith, Lance Stephenson must surely be the next trade victim before the February 18 deadline.

Well, what could have been a more fitting way for the Josh Smith experiment to end than the Los Angeles Clippers trading him back to the Houston Rockets? It’s been blindingly obvious that Doc Rivers had no plans to make Smith a feature of his team after dealing him a DNP for 10 of the last 14 games. Even two of his appearances only happened because DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin were out and Doc had absolutely no other choices at center besides Cole Aldrich.

The signing of Smith this offseason could have been a steal. Smith lit up the…