Tag: 2014 NBA Draft

Marcus Smart’s top 36 plays as a Boston Celtic

We have so much to remember Smart by in Boston.

Drafted by the Boston Celtics with the No. 6 pick of the 2014 NBA draft, onetime Oklahoma State star Marcus Smart carved a nine-season hole in our hearts no one will truly replace.

From his cobra strikes to his uncanny ability to make winning plays for the Celtics, Boston fans will have plenty of memories to look back.

To remember nearly a decade the Flower Mound native spent in Boston, fan videographer Tomasz Kordylewski put together the definitive compilation of Smart’s best plays with the Celtics — 36 of them to match his jersey number.

The first guard to win the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award since Gary Payton Sr. did in 1996, and the last player in the league to turn his back on people in need, we have so much to remember Smart by in Boston.

Least of all the plays memorialized in the video embedded above.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

[lawrence-auto-related count=1 category=590969556]

On this day: Smart, Walker, Fox drafted; Perkins, Banks, Walker trade; Hewson passes

On this day, the Boston Celtics drafted Marcus Smart, Antoine Walker and Rick Fox, and traded for Kendrick Perkins and Marcus Banks.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, the Boston Celtics selected two players of note in the 2014 NBA draft, held in Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The first was 6-foot-3 guard Marcus Smart out of Oklahoma State University, taken with the sixth overall pick of the draft. A native of Flower Mound, Texas, Smart fit in well and would make the 2014-15 All-Rookie Second Team in his inaugural season with the Celtics.

Smart’s brand of intense, all-out attack frequently saw the former Cowboy banged up with a litany of minor injuries, and his professionalism and dedication would position the young guard as the “heart and soul” and unofficial captain of the team in just a few short seasons.

Now with the Memphis Grizzlies, he earned 2018-19, 2019-20, and 2021-22 All-Defensive First Teams honors along with winning the 2022 Defensive Player of the Year award — among many other honors.

Boston’s Marcus Smart falls in redraft of NBA’s 2014 class

‘Marcus Smart truly is one of the best guard defenders in the NBA,’ writes HoopsHype.

The Boston Celtics would have taken a different player than veteran point guard Marcus Smart if the counterfactual past imagined by a redraft of the NBA’s 2014 class that was put together by Hoops Hype’s Frank Urbina and Raul Barrigon was non-fiction.

Had the draft order in this alternate reality remained the same, Boston would have taken forward Aaron Gordon with the sixth overall pick controlled by the Celtics. The Flower Mound native would have fallen to the seventh pick of the 2014 NBA draft.

“The reigning Defensive Player of the Year, even as questionable as that award might have been, Marcus Smart truly is one of the best guard defenders in the NBA,” writes Hoops Hype.

Hoops Hype notes Smart is “an absolute pest on that end of the floor” who “also provides some solid playmaking for the Celtics” as well.

Fairly, they note “his shooting is still very inconsistent,” though we think this is not as true as it used to be in terms of volume if not quality.

They have the Texan floor general ranked just ahead of Clint Capela, but at least for the Celtics, believe Smart made (and would make) more sense than a Gordon pickup would have been, with Smart the more impactful player.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

[lawrence-auto-related count=1 category=590969556]

[mm-video type=video id=01gse45wqmetaee3m0t4 playlist_id=01eqbzegwgnrje4tv2 player_id=01f1jxkahtwnvzepyp image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01gse45wqmetaee3m0t4/01gse45wqmetaee3m0t4-5921914bea1572308afc8b509a2a7443.jpg]

Veteran Celtics guard Marcus Smart drops a spot in recent 2014 NBA re-draft

The Flower Mound native got a slight demerit in this new re-draft.

Whether it is a case of recency bias over-reacting to an injury- and pandemic-inflected season or a case of defense chronically being undervalued, veteran Boston Celtics guard Marcus Smart found himself drafted a spot later than he was initially in the 2014 NBA draft in a recent re-draft of his class.

Ahead of Smart in order of the re-draft by the staff of our sister site HoopsHype are Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, Zach LaVine, Clint Capela, Julius Randle, and Andrew Wiggins. We can agree that Jokic, Embiid, LaVine, and Randle all have excellent to respectable cases for being ahead of the Flower Mound native, but Capela and Wiggins have a less clear-cut case to be taken earlier.

Capela has the better case of the two with the former no. 1 pick still a mediocre defender at best who puts up big numbers but rarely makes winning plays.

Given the high degree of subjectivity built into any such exercise, we’ll just take it as bulletin-board material for Smart heading into 2021-22.

This post originally appeared on Celtics Wire. Follow us on Facebook!

[lawrence-related id=54152,54149,54088,54084]

[listicle id=54153]