This gets to an important element of Ainge and the rebuild.
How do you "value a defensive player" today? Has the boffo scoring of today's NBA shifted player valuations?
If you look at the C's record without Smart this season (don't forget 6 or 7 games were needed for him to get back to being himself) I think, in a full season, he's a "ten win player."
Would Ainge trade Smart for offense? Has the "Curry era" diminished Smart's value?
IMO, Ainge will still "lean in favor of defense." His last title team had the defense. Ainge spent his assets to get it and, he 'skipped" getting an offensive center by sticking with Perk.
My guess is Ainge sees difficulty in replacing Smart's defense.
I wish we could sit in on this week's rumor discussion with Stevens and Ainge. Would love to know if Brad likes Kevin Love or Lopez or Melo or pix or.....
While I agree with most of this, I don't agree with the bold part above.
We have a starting lineup that features Avery Bradley, Jae Crowder and Amir Johnson. I don't think replacing Smart's defence is a big a concern as you might think.
This past week has seen me jump headfirst onto the Smart bandwagon.
If Ainge has any doubt about the kids value he need only review the game tape from Cleveland and the Clippers.
Smart is Leatherhead-warrior-ninja-werewolf and he will eat anyone who gets in his way. No way singe swaps him for anyone other than a bonafide superstar (a young one at that)
arctic has it right. You don't just take a tough-nosed defender like Smart away and expect there not to be a hole. I think this is a big issue.
Smart, Crowder, Thomas: Trade anyone else.
Disagree personally.
There is no denying Smart's merits, but he also has a LOT of holes in his games that still need developing, and for that reason he's not currently been able to earn back his starting role on this team.
It's difficult to ignore the fact that this team has been absolutely on fire since we moved Smart to the bench, and put Thomas in the starting lineup. When it was the other way around we were struggling to make the top 8.
Smart just has too many flaws in his game for us to be any more than a 7th or 8th seed with him as out primary PG. His defence is great, but but his shot selection is still questionable, his point guard still aren't quite good enough for him to be a permanent solution at PG, and his outside shot is still too inconsistent to earn sufficient respect from the defence. He's only 21 so obviously we can't just assume those flaws will always be there, but we can't just assume he'll wipe them out either.
It's still very difficult to gauge at this point exactly how high his ceiling is, and that makes it fairly risk to put TOO much investment into him - especially given his injury record so far. Personally, I still think "borderline All-Star" (i.e. Al Horford / Paul Millsap / Iggy) is about the absolute ceiling for Smart. The floor is probably a career long 6th man and energy/glue guy.
If you're Danny Ainge and you get a shot at a Demarcus Cousins calibre talent, then you would give up Smart in an absolute heartbeat. If it's for a Kevin Love / Brook Lopez level of talent then you have to give it some very serious thought -and you'd probably be on the fence for a while.
No doubt he's been playing much better lately though, and happy to see it. He's a good kid with the right attitude, but the fact is that he still hasn't been good enough consistently enough to earn a starting role over Avery Bradley - who isn't exactly a star.
Also people talk about Smart being untouchable because of the big plays he makes, but has Smart really made any more big plays than Turner has? By that logic, do you then make Turner completely untouchable too? Of course not, things just don't work that way.
Smart's upside *in the eyes of casual fans* is probably a borderline allstar, but his upside *in terms of wins contributed* is higher.
-Smart can be a borderline allstar in terms of value contributed just by becoming an average offensive player while making a modest improvement from top-15 to top-5 in the league on defense. Casual fans tend to underrate the difference between a good defender and a premier defender. And he clearly has the ability to be an average player offensively, as he has good instincts + passing to go with his excellent size/strength/length for a PG.
-There's a lot of uncertainty around Smart's true shooting ability; as of a month ago I would've said he was never going to be an above-average shooter, but now I'm not sure.
-It looks to me like his dribble-drive game has progressed, and I'm beginning to buy the narrative that he was previously held back by his injuries. However, it's based on a small sample size, and he was so bad at scoring inside his entire rookie year that I'm hesitant to declare him a slasher based on one month of production.
-It's unclear whether there is any limit to Smart's defensive upside. It's fair to expect him to be a top-5 defensive guard in the league (he may be already), but he could be the #1 defensive guard in the league with his ability to switch onto practically anyone. It's rare for a guard to be legit the best defender in the league, but Smart has as good a chance as anyone except possibly Oladipo.
All in all, I think that 'borderline all-star' is well within reach for Smart, if he becomes a premier defender and a solidly average starter on offense. But he has upside to be even better, either by becoming the best perimeter defender in the league or by developing into an above-average player on offense.
The problem is that your argument (in terms of wins added) can also be made for guys like Amir Johnson, Kelly Olynyk and even Jared Sullinger. Those guys have amazing advanced stats that indicate the type of incredible impact they have on helping the team win.
But where do you draw the line? You can't make ALL of of those guys untouchable.
Personally, I like to use Real Plus Minus to get a feel for a player's impact on team wins. If you look at that statistic:
Marcus SmartORPM: -1.52
DRPM: +1.62
RPM: +0.10 (24th among Point Guards)
Amir JohnsonORPM: +0.56
DRPM: +2.78
RPM: +3.34 (7th among Power Forwards)
Jared SullingerORPM: +0.30
DRPM: +3.76
RPM: +4.06 (11th among Centers)
Kelly OlynykORPM: +1.41
DRPM: +3.12
RPM: +4.53 (7th among Centers)
Jae CrowderORPM: +1.70
DRPM: +1.82
RPM: +3.52 (6th among Small Forwards)
Isaiah ThomasORPM: +4.29
DRPM: -2.30
RPM: +1.99 (10th among Small Forwards)
Now if you compare Smart's numbers to some other high impact "borderline All Stars" out there...
Al HorfordORPM: +1.59
DRPM: +1.25
RPM: +2.84 (21st among Power Forwards)
Greg MonroeORPM: +1.43
DRPM: +1.65
RPM: +3.08 (17st among Centers)
Brook LopezORPM: +0.61
DRPM: +2.30
RPM: +2.91 (20th among Centers)
Dwight HowardORPM: +0.36
DRPM: +3.84
RPM: +4.20 (10th among Centers)
Paul MillsapORPM: +3.53
DRPM: +2.95
RPM: +6.48 (2nd among Power Forwards)
Kevin LoveORPM: +3.30
DRPM: +2.87
RPM: +6.17 (3rd among Power Forwards)
Derrick Favors ORPM: +1.72
DRPM: +2.09
RPM: +2.09 (16th among Power Forwards)
Andre IguodalaORPM: +1.48
DRPM: +1.11
RPM: +2.59 (8th among Small Forwards)
Tobias HarrisORPM: +0.17
DRPM: +1.01
RPM: +1.18 (12th among Small Forwards)
Danilo GallinariORPM: 3.46
DRPM: +1.05
RPM: +2.41 (9th among Small Forwards)
Tyreke EvansORPM: 1.90
DRPM: +0.30
RPM: +2.20 (4th among Shooting Guards)
Khris MiddletonORPM: +3.25
DRPM: -1.53
RPM: +1.72 (5th among Shooting Guards)
Khris MiddletonORPM: +3.25
DRPM: -1.53
RPM: +1.72 (5th among Shooting Guards)
CJ McOllumORPM: +2.37
DRPM: -1.24
RPM: +1.13 (6th among Shooting Guards)
Ricky RubioORPM: +2.21
DRPM: +2.53
RPM: +4.74 (5th among Point Guards)
Eric BledsoeORPM: +2.43
DRPM: +0.59
RPM: +3.02 (7th among Point Guards)
Reggie JacksonORPM: +4.48
DRPM: -2.44
RPM: +2.04 (9th among Point Guards)
Kemba WalkerORPM: +2.23
DRPM: +0.18
RPM: +2.41 (8th among Point Guards)
People might think this crazy, but look at the guys we have added since this team made this big turnaround - Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, Marcus Smart, Amir Johnson. None of these true star plays (bar maybe Thomas) but all are positive +/- guys for their careers, and since adding them this team has increased it's wins dramatically. This (at least to me) helps to confirm that these kind of stats really do give some indication of how much guys impact their teams...and so I do put some faith in these numbers.
If you do go off these numbers, it starts to becomes easy to see that Smart's impact on his team is nice, but that there are other guys out there who could potentially be available who, statistically, have a much greater impact on winning than Smart does.
This includes some of the guys who's names have been thrown around recently such as Kevin Love, Al Horford, Brook Lopez, Demarcus Cousins and Dwight Howard. Theoretically, if you trade Smart for any one of these guys, the team gets better.
The argument for Smart's ability to impact teams in the long term (once he develops) is one factor to consider, but that's an uncertainty until it happens. These guys are known quantities. If you have chance to trade Smart guy one of the guys who meets that criteria AND who you can lock in for the long term, you have to consider it.
Smart is a really good defensive player and impacts the game in a lot of other ways, but it doesn't matter WHAT statistic you look at (pure box score stats, or advanced stats like these) there are other guys out there in the league (and even on this team) who have more positive impact than Smart does.
The problem is that it's easy to be a strong team with a good record by having lots of "Smart like" guys - guys who aren't dominant stars, but who have big team impact. It is however very difficult to win championships with lots of those kinds of players. You kinda need guys who can dominate entire games and entire series on a consistent basis so go far in the playoffs, and Smart isn't consistent enough to be that kind of guy...yet. It's impossible to know if he ever will be - he might, but who knows. If you can move a hopeful for a proven entity, you usually do it.