Thanks to his tenacity on the defensive end, Marcus Smart has become one of the most hated players in the NBA.
The reigning NBA Defensive Player of the Year, Smart has shown an innate ability to frustrate an opposing team’s best player.
Now, it appears his offense is coming around as well.
Last year, Smart moved to the point guard spot for the first time in his NBA career, a transition that was marked by some growing pains at the beginning of the year.
But by the end of the 2021-22 season, Smart had become an integral part of a Celtics’ team that made it all the way to the NBA Finals.
While he’s been mired in a shooting slump to start the year, the Celtics’ best defender appears to have developed into one of the league’s top distributors.
Has Marcus Smart Turned Into An Elite NBA Point Guard?
For nearly a year now, NBA fans have been begging for Boston to add a ‘real point guard’ to the roster.
In the offseason, the Celtics appeared to make a splashy move, adding Malcolm Brogdon to an already stacked roster.
However, Smart has retained his spot in the starting lineup while Brogdon comes off of the Boston bench.
Last season, Smart averaged a career-high 5.9 assists per game.
That number has jumped to 7.0 per game in 2022-23, but that figure only tells half of the story.
Smart has been more decisive with the ball in his hands this year, which has improved his decision-making and led to fewer turnovers.
As a result, he’s cut his turnovers per game by nearly 47% through the first 13 games of the season.
Smart Heating Up During Celtics’ 6-Game Winning Streak
Smart has been, well, smarter with the basketball this season, leading to just 1.5 turnovers per game.
He’s been even better during Boston’s current winning streak too.
The Celtics have won each of their last six games and Smart has averaged a healthy 8.2 assists, and only 1.3 turnovers per game during that span. He has 54 assists and only nine turnovers in seven November contests, a testament to the work that he’s put in during the offseason.
He’s also starting to shoot the ball better from long range.
The 28-year-old point guard has shot just 37.9 percent from 3-point range during those six contests, up from 22 percent during the team’s first seven games.
If Smart can shoot the ball consistently from 3-point range, the Celtics could emerge as serious NBA Finals contenders once again in 2022-23.
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