Marcus Smart needs to leave Boston or his career will never get better

[CelticGuardian]

I can see where keeping Marcus can be seen as selfish and it's not allowing him to reach his potential.  A team may really like him and he could get dealt but until a team steps to the table it's all talk.   I also think he ahs a good role here. He's playing a lot of minutes regardless. He needs to focus more on his playmaking and shot selection when he comes into the game. HE compliments IT well because of his size and defense.  IT isn't old but isn't young either and Smart could start here eventually as well.

I don't think the Celtics have any intent to trade IT or Marcus. I think they like them both.  And Rozier too.

IT is entering and in his  prime years right now.  He's basically entering them.   As he gets older Marcus will be entering his.

Nets pick wins the lottery and you could have Fultz or Lonzo Ball. Tell me you are not shipping Marcus the hell outta here...

[CelticGuardian]

Is it ever Smart's fault?

In the beginning of the season, when the shooting numbers were starting to decline back to good old Smaht levels, people here were asking for patience because his jumpshot was new... like what? lol, I tell ya this kid is like the Kim Jong Un of Celticsblog.

[mmmmm]

He was playing well as a starter.  Was shooting close to 50 percent and improving in other facets. 

I don't want to gang up on Marcus (I tend to see more hope for him than others) but that is just not factually true.

As a starter, he has shot 40% FG% this year.  It's true that that is better than the the 33.3% he has shot from the bench, but it's a long way from 50%.   Overall, even as a starter his true scoring efficiency is still an awful 48.7% TS (league average is around 53-54%).   

That isn't really playing "well" on offense.  It's just not as bad as his numbers off the bench.

All that said, I've seen positive signs in recent games.  He has dramatically reduced the number of threes that he is shooting -- so that is not hurting the team as much.   And when he has been on the floor, Brad has had Marcus handle the ball more -- even sometimes when Thomas is also on the floor -- which removes the need for him to be an outside shooter.   And to be fair, Smart is not bad at all as a ball handler and passer.  His TO rates are not as low as Thomas', but they are low.   And the other positive thing is that when they do want Marcus to score, more and more they are using mid-and-short-range post-ups and simple floater shots from the mid-paint area.  Places where he actually has semi-decent touch on his shots and he can use his body to create a shot for.

To me, for Marcus to succeed on offense, it is all about needing to play within himself first.  I think it was a mistake to try to turn him into volume three point shooter when he came out of college with such a visibly broken 3PT shot.  Right now, Smart needs to play a more Rondo-style of point in order to have value on offense.

[Jferrari401]

I think that Marcus's future will most likely be has a high end role player. A combo guard who can run the offense, play fantastic D, hustle and make winning plays down the stretch. I still hold out hope for him to develop a niche on offense as a post up guard with somewhat of a mid range game; maybe along the lines of Andre Miller.

Smarts worst quality right now is his shot selection and sometimes I feel that this is on Brad. He simply can't continue shooting threes the way he does. It's one thing if he is wide open and has time, but there is no way one of our worst shooters should be catching and shooting on the run or off of screens. He needs to pick his spots and look for midrange shots of the dribble and post shots on smaller defenders.

I still feel like he is a good piece going forward. There are very few players his age who we can say dominated the fourth quarter of a playoff game on both sides of the ball the way he did last year. There is room to grow and lots of players develop slowly.

I agree he can be a high end role player, but let's not pretend this is Steven's fault. Stevens isn't telling Smart to shoot threes haha. Smart shot a lot of threes in college too. This is his game. He can't get to the basket because he lacks a good first step, so he shoots.

Do you remember how AB started out when Stevens came in? AB would shoot mid range jumpers mostly, and then the next year he started shooting more threes as he expanded his range.

Don't understand why people keep blaming the team for Smart's ineffectiveness on offense. He's literally running the show this year, which is what all the Smart fanatics complained about last year.

I mean I'm not blaming Brad Stevens for Marcus's offensive shortcomings, as you said his form and quickness aren't very good. Just saying that Brad loves his threes and you have to think he's encouraging it to an extent. I would just like to see Smart take a step in from the line, even if that's a "bad" shot by modern standards.

It's true that AB took a lot of midrange and as did Turner last year. It's on Smart to know his range too obviously. I'd just like to see him at least experiment with cutting triples out of his game for a while unless they are wide open.

[Jferrari401]

at this point i fully given up on his ability on the offensive end, that doesn't mean I have given him up as a player. Still LOVE Smart, he brings it every day, and definitely a beast on the defensive end, and I do truly believe his plays down crunch time are definitely skills we will need down the stretch and that is not necessarily scoring, his passing and his defense does change the outcome of games.

However, I still believe to an extent that his offense could be better and because of the system he is playing, Brad isn't using him to be a scorer.

I'm with you on this except I wouldn't lose all hope with his offense. I don't think we will ever see him become a scorer but I still feel like he can find more of a role on that end with age. Lower volume and higher efficiency.

[TrueFan]

I'd like to see Jaylen get Marcus Smart's minutes and see what he can do with them.

To me it's worth it to take a step back in the short term because Brown's ceiling is obviously higher then Smart's.

I'm even starting to think Roz should be getting more consistent minutes over Smart.

I feel bad for Marcus. It's been a tough year.

[tankcity!]

He was playing well as a starter.  Was shooting close to 50 percent and improving in other facets. 

I don't want to gang up on Marcus (I tend to see more hope for him than others) but that is just not factually true.

As a starter, he has shot 40% FG% this year.  It's true that that is better than the the 33.3% he has shot from the bench, but it's a long way from 50%.   Overall, even as a starter his true scoring efficiency is still an awful 48.7% TS (league average is around 53-54%).   

That isn't really playing "well" on offense.  It's just not as bad as his numbers off the bench.

All that said, I've seen positive signs in recent games.  He has dramatically reduced the number of threes that he is shooting -- so that is not hurting the team as much.   And when he has been on the floor, Brad has had Marcus handle the ball more -- even sometimes when Thomas is also on the floor -- which removes the need for him to be an outside shooter.   And to be fair, Smart is not bad at all as a ball handler and passer.  His TO rates are not as low as Thomas', but they are low.   And the other positive thing is that when they do want Marcus to score, more and more they are using mid-and-short-range post-ups and simple floater shots from the mid-paint area.  Places where he actually has semi-decent touch on his shots and he can use his body to create a shot for.

To me, for Marcus to succeed on offense, it is all about needing to play within himself first.  I think it was a mistake to try to turn him into volume three point shooter when he came out of college with such a visibly broken 3PT shot.  Right now, Smart needs to play a more Rondo-style of point in order to have value on offense.

This

[ThaPreacher]

Marcus' issues aren't the team.  It's that he is a terrible offensive player with little reason to believe he'll get much better.  That's been pretty obvious from the get go.  Anyone thinking differently is basing it only on hope and prayer.

Anyway, going to another team won't change any of that.

No,  but it might help net us Noel, Okafor or Cousins!  We can't think we can survive the first round without some changes. 

[droopdog7]

Marcus' issues aren't the team.  It's that he is a terrible offensive player with little reason to believe he'll get much better.  That's been pretty obvious from the get go.  Anyone thinking differently is basing it only on hope and prayer.

Anyway, going to another team won't change any of that.

then why does the team keep pushing him to shoot.

Forgive me but is there evidence that they are pushing him to shoot?

And before you side track my point, what is the evidence that he can be a good offensive player?  I see virtually zero.

[PhoSita]

I agree that Marcus Smart's value is going to depend a great deal on the situation he's in.

I don't agree, however, that his development would substantially change on a different team.  I've seen enough to feel that he is more or less the player he's going to be.  How useful that is will depend on the other guys around him.  Very similar to Tony Allen, Evan Turner, and Jared Sullinger.

[tankcity!]

I agree that Marcus Smart's value is going to depend a great deal on the situation he's in.

I don't agree, however, that his development would substantially change on a different team.  I've seen enough to feel that he is more or less the player he's going to be.  How useful that is will depend on the other guys around him.  Very similar to Tony Allen, Evan Turner, and Jared Sullinger.

If that ends up being true, then it's very sad we wasted a #6 overall pick on him. I wanted Lavine at the time, but I understood that would be a reach. Was hoping they would trade down.

[PhoSita]

I agree that Marcus Smart's value is going to depend a great deal on the situation he's in.

I don't agree, however, that his development would substantially change on a different team.  I've seen enough to feel that he is more or less the player he's going to be.  How useful that is will depend on the other guys around him.  Very similar to Tony Allen, Evan Turner, and Jared Sullinger.

If that ends up being true, then it's very sad we wasted a #6 overall pick on him. I wanted Lavine at the time, but I understood that would be a reach. Was hoping they would trade down.

I loved the pick at the time.  There weren't any no-brainer picks in the lottery after Smart.  Randle seemed to have more talent, but not as easy to project him to a role in the NBA.  LaVine seemed very athletic but it wasn't clear if he could play (similar to Jaylen).  Nobody else really jumped out.

It's looking like the best player in that draft taken after Smart was probably Jokic, followed by Lavine, Hood and Capela.  It would have been nice if Ainge could have taken at least one of those guys between the #6 and the #18 pick, but the draft is never a sure thing.

At least the Celts got a useful contributor out of one of those picks.

But hey, we could have picked higher and ended up with Exum, who doesn't look particularly good.  We could have landed Aaron Gordon, who would probably look pretty good on the Celts, but that's luck.

[Moranis]

Marcus' issues aren't the team.  It's that he is a terrible offensive player with little reason to believe he'll get much better.  That's been pretty obvious from the get go.  Anyone thinking differently is basing it only on hope and prayer.

Anyway, going to another team won't change any of that.

then why does the team keep pushing him to shoot.

Forgive me but is there evidence that they are pushing him to shoot?

And before you side track my point, what is the evidence that he can be a good offensive player?  I see virtually zero.

It seems pretty obvious from the offense Stevens runs and the fact that Smart continues to shoot without any repercussions.  If they didn't want him to shoot, then he wouldn't shoot so much.

I think Smart could be a very effective offensive player if he was in a system where he was required to drive and dish more, be more of a facilitator, and not a stand around shooter.  There are times when Smart does those things very well, it just isn't Boston's offensive system so he doesn't consistently do those things.

[Moranis]

I agree that Marcus Smart's value is going to depend a great deal on the situation he's in.

I don't agree, however, that his development would substantially change on a different team.  I've seen enough to feel that he is more or less the player he's going to be.  How useful that is will depend on the other guys around him.  Very similar to Tony Allen, Evan Turner, and Jared Sullinger.

If that ends up being true, then it's very sad we wasted a #6 overall pick on him. I wanted Lavine at the time, but I understood that would be a reach. Was hoping they would trade down.

I loved the pick at the time.  There weren't any no-brainer picks in the lottery after Smart.  Randle seemed to have more talent, but not as easy to project him to a role in the NBA.  LaVine seemed very athletic but it wasn't clear if he could play (similar to Jaylen).  Nobody else really jumped out.

It's looking like the best player in that draft taken after Smart was probably Jokic, followed by Lavine, Hood and Capela.  It would have been nice if Ainge could have taken at least one of those guys between the #6 and the #18 pick, but the draft is never a sure thing.

At least the Celts got a useful contributor out of one of those picks.

But hey, we could have picked higher and ended up with Exum, who doesn't look particularly good.  We could have landed Aaron Gordon, who would probably look pretty good on the Celts, but that's luck.

I wanted Randle, but with Sullinger already here, I totally get why Boston went with Smart and not Randle.  I probably would have gone with Vonleh after Randle as I thought he had the most upside though his floor was very low as he was very raw (he seems like a bust at this point so I'm glad it is Smart and not him).

[Evantime34]

I still have hope for Marcus, he has improved enough as a passer to run a second unit offense. I think his ability to play the point is the only way to negate his shooting on offense. I like that he hasn't been shooting much recently, he is honestly a more effective player at this point if he just defends and doesn't shoot jumpers on offense.

Long term I think he can start in this league next to an elite scorer if Avery becomes too expensive. He's probably not going to be a superstar, but he is the type of player you build an elite defense around. He brings up the effort levels of everyone around him, at that is a valuable trait