By the summer of 2021, Marcus Smart was exhausted, both physically and mentally.
Basketball had been unrelenting for nearly three straight calendar years. There was Boston's tumultuous 2018-19 season followed by a trip overseas with USA Basketball. The pandemic invaded during the 2019-20 campaign and Smart was one of the NBA’s earliest COVID positives at a time when we were all still learning about the virus.
Boston’s tantalizing bubble run wasn't without its moments of isolation and frustration. An earlier-than-expected restart to the 2020-21 season meant little time to decompress, and Boston’s roller coaster ways combined with strict COVID restrictions didn’t make the campaign any easier to navigate.
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SIGN UP HERE Smart was left searching for a joy that basketball once delivered.
For the first time in a half decade, the Celtics entered that summer of 2021 without an All-Star point guard on the roster after Brad Stevens dealt Kemba Walker away in June. Many scoffed at the notion of Smart in the starting point guard role, suggesting he too often sought his own offense and couldn’t thrive as a playmaker. Others wondered if Smart’s defensive dip during the 2020-21 season was indicative of a player whose body would continue to defy him given his full-throttle style of play.
But after installing a defensive-minded head coach and considering data that suggested Smart’s best basketball often came when he quarterbacked the offense, Stevens and the Celtics offered their longest-tenured player a four-year, $77 million extension, the most Smart was eligible to receive. The two sides moved to an agreement in August.
And with that, a weight was lifted.
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Smart responded with his best season as a pro. He spearheaded the NBA’s top-ranked defense and soon might be the first guard since Gary Payton in 1996 to win Defensive Player of the Year. He also quarterbacked a Boston offense that was No. 1 in the league after Smart returned from a COVID bout in late January.
There’s a joy in basketball again.
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"[It’s] very rewarding,” said Smart. "A lot of things that happened in the year, and even this year, that has put a lot of things in my life in perspective. And really just allowed me to focus on things positive -- positive energy. Things that really matter."
Those closest to Smart are reveling in his redemption tour. There was little doubt in the mind of his former coach that Smart, a point guard at every stop in his basketball journey, could thrive in this role.
"I think that this year in particular ... it's been really amazing," said Kenny Boren, Smart’s high school coach who still serves as a mentor and runs his YounGameChanger basketball camps. "He’s in his eighth year and he's having, in my opinion, the best season of his career. And so I think that's pretty rare. I think a lot of people peak maybe three, four, or five years in. I consider him kind of an old veteran now and he's still peaking, he's still moving in that direction, upwards.
"It’s pretty cool to hear the talk of DPOY that's going on. Of course, I feel like he's deserved that for a while but I'm a little bit biased. It's been a really cool journey ... This year is kind of a pinnacle and I have a feeling next year will be a new pinnacle. He just continues to amaze me, that's for sure."
One thing that probably shouldn't amaze is that Smart thrived in the point guard role. For all the consternation about his 3-point attempts, Smart routinely posted eye-popping numbers whenever he was thrown the keys to the car.
When you have Isaiah Thomas, Kyrie Irving, and Kemba Walker ahead of you on the depth chart, you simply don’t get many opportunities behind the wheel. Smart was content to have a learner’s permit and resolved to sit wherever he was told in the Celtics caravan.
First-year coach Ime Udoka tossed Smart a pair of driving gloves and told him to have fun. And he has.
Smart logged 51 percent of his minutes as the clear-cut point guard this season, according to position data logged by Cleaning the Glass. The Celtics had a net differential of plus-13.7 in Smart’s nearly 1,200 minutes as primary point guard. Smart’s differential ranked in the 99th percentile among all players at his position.
The Celtics posted an offensive rating of 119 in Smart's minutes at point guard, or 5.4 points per 100 possessions higher than their season average that ranked tied for 8th in the NBA.
That number extended a career-long trend of the Celtics having positive on/off splits whenever Smart was at point guard.
Smart slammed his foot on the accelerator this season and never looked in the rearview. The Celtics were a modest positive (+2.3 net differential) in lineups where Smart slotted as the shooting guard -- 42 percent of his minutes shared with either Dennis Schroder or Payton Pritchard on the floor, per Cleaning the Glass -- but it's clear Smart thrived when he was the clear-cut decision-maker.
That suggests Smart wasn't off base when he suggested early in the season that he couldn't be as effective if he didn't have the ball in his hands during late-game situations where Boston’s offense routinely fizzled. His comments were taken as challenging Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown to be more deferential, but Smart told NBC Sports Boston last week that he was simply suggesting that's how other teams viewed Boston's late-game offense.
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Intended or not, Smart’s nudge might have helped Tatum and Brown evolve their playmaking ways and become more willing facilitators.
But it’s clear that Smart is comfortable in his own skin now. How else to explain a player who routinely roams around the practice facility in Versace robes, or emerges from the weight room just to dance while teammates are getting up shots after practice?
"Ime's done an unbelievable job this year, from so many different perspectives, but just giving Marcus the confidence to be the point guard, not putting him in the corner," said Boren. "I just think that's where his position is and that he's a great passer, he sees the floor, his IQ is high. I think that's really kind of come to fruition with everybody on the team with the decisions that he's made with the ball in his hands."
Boston’s offense truly launched in late January. Smart came back from a COVID absence in Washington and Boston’s ball movement seemed like it was on steroids for the remainder of the season. Smart cranked the tempo and teammates followed suit by making quicker decisions. Combined with Tatum’s second-half shot-making, it seemed to unlock Boston’s offensive potential.
Smart averaged 6.5 assists over his final 33 games and the Celtics outscored teams by 337 points during his time on the floor. Those questioning whether Smart could quarterback the offense have gone silent.
Those who have been along for the journey are taking their victory lap.
"He's just grown up, man," said Boren. "It’s just a different Smart and it's cool. And it's a blessing to have been a part of all this, to see him go from an eighth grader that ran the show and was a stud, to a high school player that won multiple state championships and ran the show, to Oklahoma State, where he ran the show, to his AAU teams, where he ran the show and was a stud, to the Team USA Olympic teams …
"He’s just always been a winner. I've used that word with a lot of interviews. And he's just a winner. He cares about one thing and one thing only, and that's the value of the basketball. You have to value the ball, which is why he'll do anything to take it from somebody just to win.
"He hasn't lost much in his whole life. And so he's just always won. I know it's kind of cliché but he's just like the epitome of a winner."
Editor's Note: Each day this week, NBC Sports Boston will spotlight a different "pillar" of the 2021-22 Celtics.
