Biggest Areas Where Marcus Smart Has to Improve to Succeed for Boston Celtics
Watch Marcus Smart play basketball, and you’ll catch brief moments when the Boston Celtics rookie looks like a bona fide franchise point guard.
They’re few and far between but definitely exist: the gritty defensive brilliance of an eight-year veteran, a fearless, downright ballsy jumper (he’s made 57.1 percent of his three-pointers in clutch situations) and a total obsession with those unquantifiable “winning” plays that will never, ever go out of style—corralling loose balls, deflecting passes, etc.
But for all the optimism he inspires, Smart, who’s still a couple of months from his 21st birthday, is also unable to solidify a spot in Boston’s starting lineup after the team begged him to take it by trading Rajon Rondo one week before Christmas. Since then, he’s scoring 6.9 points and dishing out 3.7 assists in about 25 minutes per game.
Not bad numbers. Not great, either. The question now: What can Smart do to be more consistent, and where does he badly need to grow up as a player? It’s too early to know for sure whether he’s a worthy long-term poster boy for the most decorated franchise in NBA history, but what we’ve seen so far can tell us a lot. Here’s a closer look, beginning with a few words from ESPNBoston.com's Chris Forsberg:
"Smart's role has increased again in the aftermath of the trade that sent Jeff Green to Memphis. He's averaging 30 minutes per contest over the past three games and his development will be one of the biggest topics around this team the rest of the season.
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It's only natural that we will all look for other areas of weakness in Smart's game. And the new focus is likely to fall on his lack of aggression toward the basket. Smart appears reluctant to drive at times, seemingly still finding his way in the pick-and-roll game at the NBA level.
The stats back this up. The league's player tracking data logs drives -- or any touch that starts 20 feet from the hoop and is dribbled within 10 feet of the basket, excluding fast breaks. Smart has only 30 drives this season, a meager number when you consider Phil Pressey has 63 in nearly half the floor time. What's more, Synergy Sports data has Smart averaging a mere 0.629 points per play during possessions he's finished as the pick-and-roll ball-handler, shooting just 34.8 percent in those situations.
The most important quality possessed by every great point guard (and player) is an ability to make teammates better, be it directly or indirectly. Smart does this on occasion but has yet to command the floor with consistency.
He doesn't get into the lane, has a debatable shot selection and frustrates with a mysterious inability to create off the dribble. The following two pictures are a perfect example of why Smart needs to play with more patience, instead of always settling for an easy escape.
First, he runs a high pick-and-roll with Tyler Zeller to get a step on his defender, Jimmer Fredette. New Orleans Pelicans stonewall Omer Asik has dropped back in coverage, baiting Smart to launch an inefficient mid-range jumper. Instead of taking a shot or attacking the basket, Smart quickly whips a cross-court pass to Jae Crowder, just as John Salmons steps up to deflect it out of bounds.
This next example is even more egregious. Smart is essentially one-on-one with Ryan Anderson, who's never been confused with Kevin Garnett. Instead of attacking, getting to the rim, drawing a foul or dropping a simple bounce pass to Zeller when Jeff Withey eventually rotated over to help, Smart throws a pass back to the popping Brandon Bass, who promptly turns it over.
Smart must get deeper into the opposing team's defense, if not to score on his own, then to draw help from defenders and create open looks elsewhere on the floor. That he hasn't is a bit troubling. Smart was a bull in college, someone who could rumble down the lane and draw a foul at will.
As a sophomore at Oklahoma State, he averaged 9.9 free-throw attempts per 40 minutes. So far in the NBA, he’s at 2.5. Smart is very young and not even 600 minutes into his career, but it’s hard to ignore his hesitation off the dribble. He passes too soon and refuses to crack the paint. (According to SportVU, Smart averages only 1.3 drives per game.)
It's disputable whether Smart's over-reliance on the three ball is cause for concern this early in his career. On one hand, after entering the league with a porous reputation, he's actually not that bad of an outside shooter. He's made 34.9 percent of his threes this season and 41.5 percent on catch-and-shoot situations, per SportVU.
Since returning from an ankle injury that sidelined him 10 games early in the season, Smart's shooting 39.3 percent from beyond the arc and posting an impressive true shooting percentage of .568.
But the worry comes with how large a chunk of his attack the outside shot takes up. He's attempted 46 two-point field goals this season and 86 threes. That's not the healthiest ratio in the world. Even Damian Lillard and Steph Curry, two of the most prolific three-point shooting point guards in NBA history, never jacked up threes at Smart's current rate. It's a bit much.
The other side of the argument would say he's really young, and developing an outside shot now wouldn't hurt as his career goes on. That's true, but he'll never be more effective than as a lead ball-handler who can get into the paint and wreak havoc whenever he wants. That's the player Boston wants Smart to be, and so far he hasn't shown it.
He's already a nightmare on defense and appears on track to be one of, if not the best, on-ball defenders at his position in two or three years. Smart's an intuitive defender away from the action, too. He plays passing lanes without gambling and makes solid rotations as a help defender to take away what the offense wants to do.
As Tyreke Evans and Ryan Anderson run a pick-and-roll to get Anderson an open three, Smart sniffs it out and quickly shuffles off his man to cover New Orleans' open stretch 4. Evans is forced instead to throw a cross-court pass to Fredette, Smart's initial responsibility. But the Celtics are much less worried about him as a threat and have plenty of time to rotate as a team. This is really intelligent defense.
An organic replacement for Rajon Rondo—an iconic original whose number will someday hang in Boston’s rafters—Smart bears the weight of an organization. On one end of the floor, he's already come so far in living up to high expectations. But in order to show he can thrive as a true franchise point guard, he'll need to be more aggressive with the ball in his hands, lower his turnovers and create offense off the dribble.
Mistakes are okay. All the Celtics want to see is him make them, then get better.
All statistics are courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com or NBA.com, unless otherwise noted.
Michael Pina is an NBA writer who's been published at Bleacher Report, Sports on Earth, Fox Sports, Grantland and a few other special places. Follow him on Twitter @MichaelVPina.
