Can Dort become OKC’s Marcus Smart?
Marcus Smart is the longest-standing current Boston Celtic. This is Smart’s eighth season in Celtic green.
Maybe Luguentz Dort can become the Thunder’s Marcus Smart.
Smart is what the Thunder hopes Dort can become. Not just a defensive savant, not just a productive scorer, but a winning ballplayer.
Dort is on his way. But Smart is there. The former OSU Cowboy last week was named the NBA Defensive Player of the Year, the first guard to be so honored since Gary Payton way back in 1996.
The award was aptly-timed, coming less than 24 hours after Smart was front and center in one of the NBA’s best firstround playoff games in years, the Celtics’ 115-114 squeaker over Brooklyn, won on Jayson Tatum’s spinning layup at the buzzer, off a Smart pass, in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference playoff series. The Celtics beat the Nets 116-112 Monday night to finish a four-game sweep.
Smart and Dort are similarly built. Smart is 6-foot-3, 220 pounds and looks like a linebacker. Dort is 6-3, 215 and looks like a fullback.
Smart and Dort are similarly productive. Believe it or not, Dort through three seasons is a higher scorer than is Smart through eight years — 13.3 to 10.5 (points per game) — and outshoots Smart in both 3-point percentage (.333-.321) and 2-point percentage (.463-449).
Smart and Dort are similarly indelicate players. They attack the basket and any defensive assignment with ferocity.
But there are differences. Smart is the smarter and savvier defender, due in part to experience. Dort is getting there quick, though. And Smart is the more complete offensive player. He’s the
Celtic point guard, a status bestowed last off-season, after years as the Boston sixth man. Smart, a point guard at OSU, is a playmaker, this season averaging 5.9 assists per game, to Dort’s 1.7.
Smart’s court awareness was on display in that Game 1. With the Netropolitans leading by a point, Boston’s vaunted defense presented a formidable wall on Brooklyn’s final possession, with Smart sticking with Net magician Kyrie Irving. Irving eventually had to give up the ball to fellow superstar Kevin Durant, who missed a contested 25-footer with about 10 seconds left.
Boston hurried the ball upcourt, Jaylen Brown drove the lane, converged the defense and passed to Smart on the wing. With the clock ticking down, Smart pump-faked, Nets Durant and Bruce Brown came flying past him with three seconds left and everyone on the Eastern Seaboard thought Smart would shoot.
Instead, Smart sensed the Celtics suddenly were playing 5-on-3. He took a dribble, saw Tatum cutting and hit him with a pass that led to the buzzer-beating layup.
Typical Smart play. Winning basketball. His final line in Game 1: 20 points, seven rebounds, six assists and clutch shooting, including four of nine on 3pointers. For the series, Smart is averaging 15.3 points, 5.7 assists and guarding everyone from Durant to Irving.
Did Smart deserve to the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year? The NBA voters certainly thought so, picking Smart over Phoenix’s Mikal Bridges and Utah’s Rudy Gobert. Full disclosure – the 7foot-3 Gobert is the league’s best defender. He changes games well before they start. Gobert’s incredibly long arms protect the rim and cut off passing lanes. He’s a one-man Jazz defense. However, when teams go small, they can negate Gobert’s impact.
There is no negating Smart’s defensive impact.
“It’s understandable why it was such a big man award,” Smart said, according to celtics.com. “They do so much in helping their team on that end. We give so much credit to the big men. But those guards, they’ve been working, we’re the front line; you have to get past us first, and that’s how us guards feel.
“To be able to be named the Defensive Player of the Year and be the first guard since Gary Payton in 1996 to win this, it just shows that it can be done. The way the game is changing, the guards have been more recognized for their ability to do certain things we shouldn’t be able to do at our size, and this award and me winning it opens the path for guards in the future.”
The Celtics surprised Smart by having Payton on hand to deliver the news of the award. Then Smart’s teammates sprayed him with water in celebration.
“First off, I definitely want to thank you guys: my coaching staff, teammates,” Smart said. “It’s not easy playing in this league full of guys like Jayson and Jaylen who score the … ball the way they do and getting the recognition on that defensive end, trying to guard those guys every night. This is eight years, man, just trying to do what I do. You guys allowed me to do that.”
Smart played at OSU in 2012-13 and 2013-14. He was a tremendous defensive player in the Big 12 and was the conference’s 2013 player of the year. The Celtics drafted Smart sixth overall in 2014, and he’s become a Boston institution.
Celtics center Rob Williams finished seventh in defensive player of the year voting and lauded Smart.
“A lot of my defensive grit and my will to fight out there I get from just watching him,” said Williams. “Even in practice, him being vocal. On the court, he’s a great defensive anchor for us, but he’s a better leader. And he doesn’t even know it. He’s always talking, putting guys where they need to be.”
The Thunder just hopes Dort can become the same thing in Oklahoma City.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.