A former Boston Celtics standout has come under fire from a longtime league insider.
In a new piece, Dan Favale of Bleacher Report has ranked ex-Celtics Defensive Player of the Year guard Marcus Smart as the second-most overrated player of the last half-decade, behind only troubled Charlotte Hornets forward Miles Bridges.
The 6-foot-3 Oklahoma State product split the last two seasons between the Memphis Grizzlies and Washington Wizards.
Smart negotiated a contract buyout with Washington, and inked a two-year, $10.5 million deal with the Celtics' least favorite NBA team, the Los Angeles Lakers.
Smart has lost a step — or two — athletically since the days when he was a three-time All-Defensive Teamer for several contending Boston teams. Health has dulled his impact. The 31-year-old was available for just 54 combined games across the last two years.
But for Favale, it's Smart's shortcomings as a volume shooter that ultimate make him such an impediment to his own teams.
"Out of the 155 other players to attempt as many shots since 2020-21, Smart's 50.1 effective field-goal percentage ranks 143rd," Favale writes. "Any positive indicators from the perimeter have proven to be blips."
Smart had seemed to be somewhat miscast as Boston's primary playmaker even during his prime, as Favale suggests. Favale writes that Smart's ball control has also proven to be an issue.
"There's something to be said for Smart's teams regularly playing better with him on the floor," Favale opines. "There's also something to be said about a body of defensive work that hasn't quite lived up to its legend. The level of responsibility he carries will always be immense, but even during the season in which he won Defensive Player of the Year (2021-22), there's a real debate to be had about whether he was even the most valuable defensive player on his own team."
Former Celtics starting center Robert Williams III, an All-Defensive Second Teamer that season, may have been the single best per-minute defender on that team in 2021-22, but since he was limited to just 61 healthy games, he was ultimately demoted from true Defensive Player of the Year consideration.
