Josh Smith/Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Clippers, Houston Rockets

Power forward Josh Smith likes a lot of things about his new team. The seriousness with which it has conducted itself the first three days of training camp is at the top of the list.

“It’s definitely competitive,” Smith said Monday from training camp at UC Irvine. “We see the vision early and what’s great about what’s going on is there is no air space for any BS, you know what I mean? There’s a lot of policing going around, which is great for the team to be able to kind of get everybody geared on the right vision and right direction to go.”

Which direction is that? Smith was asked.

“Winning the championship, finishing last,” he said.

Smith explained.

“Our owner (Steve Ballmer) had a team dinner a couple of days ago and that’s what really stuck to me,” he said. “Everybody always wants to be first, but it’s all about being last, finishing last, being the last team standing. And that really stuck with me. And if everyone has that mentality, we can do some special things this year. “