CLEVELAND, Ohio - Many basketball players say they don't care what their box score line is as long as the team wins.

This noble view is more honored in the breach than the observance, however.

If you want to see a player who wants to win, look for the one who takes the low percentage, end of half or end of quarter heave, not the one who releases it just ... too ... late for it to count in the box score because it likely would miss.

"Tell them to give it to me. I'll shoot it," J.R. Smith said when I posed that scenario to him soon after he joined the Cleveland Cavaliers four years ago.

That was the free-'n-easy J.R. of the nickname "Swish," the never-up never-in J.R., the Smith even LeBron James envied for his freedom.

"You mean where you can just shoot any shot you like, when you're not open, when you're not close enough, just shoot it? Yeah," James said, when asked if he would like to be a J.R. for a day.

Where did that J.R. go?

Whoever or whatever took that J.R. away, and there are a lot of suspects, the Cavaliers would like to have him back.

The prevalent view among fans seems to be that Smith got the big money, a $12.8 million contract, up from $5 million, after the 2016 NBA championship season and has been self-satisfied ever since.

It's more likely the reverse is true, and he has put too much pressure on himself to live up to it.

Last season was very difficult. Smith broke his thumb, missed much of the season and worried about the premature birth of a child. He agreed to subordinate his offense to harass the other team's best guard on defense.

This season, it didn't go well for either Smith or Dwyane Wade when the season started with Wade in the starting lineup and Smith coming off the bench.

Swish? Or miss?

That changed quickly, but this is still Smith's second straight season of failing to average in double figures. Before Thursday's game against Orlando, he was scoring 7.6 points per game, his worst mark ever.

His 37.9 percent overall shooting is his second worst. Last year's 34.6 was the nadir.

His 34.8 percent on threes is his lowest in eight years, and his mark of just under five threes attempted per game is his lowest in seven years.

How it used to be

Many nights, Smith has no discernible impact on the game, a shock for those who remember his streaks.

There were eight triples in a dozen tries, each seemingly more preposterous than the one before, against Atlanta in the 2015 Eastern Conference finals opener.

There was his burst of rat-a-tat's in the fourth quarter to help save the season against the Chicago Bulls in Game 4 of that series the same year.

There were his eight points early in the third quarter of Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals at Golden State when the Cavs were seven points down at halftime. All three went down in less time than it takes to say "heat check."

Sometimes, his best wasn't far from his worst. Smith can be an outsized presence, a game changer who could do it either way, heating up quick enough to microwave threes, shooting his team into games or, if he was off, out of them. He could inspire or imperil, depending on the arc of his shot.

"Shoot it, J.R! Shoot it!" his teammates would say, coach Ty Lue would counsel, and James would urge.

Whatever else he was, he was never invisible.

Those were the days.