Marcus Smart has spent a long time campaigning for a guard, specifically himself, to win the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year award.
He doesn’t have to do that anymore.
Today, Smart finally won the award, becoming the first guard since Gary Payton in 1996 to be named DPOY, and the first (and only other) Celtic to do it since Kevin Garnett in 2008. As an added treat, it was Payton who presented Smart with the award.
“When I came out and I saw GP things kind of clicked,” Smart said. “I started to put two and two together. But my teammates and the coaching staff, they did a good job of just kind of setting that up for me.”
Defensive Player of the Year has been reserved for big men for the past quarter-century, partly because they are the last line of defense and the blocked shot is one of the most obvious signs of playing defense you’ll find.
“It’s understandable why it was such a big man award,” Smart said. “But those guards, they’ve been working, we’re the front line, you have to get past us first, and that’s how us guards feel. To be able to be named the Defensive Player of the Year and be the first guard since Gary Payton in 1996 to win this, it just shows that it can be done. The way the game is changing, the guards have been more recognized for their ability to do certain things we shouldn’t be able to do at our size, and this award and me winning it opens the path for guards in the future.”
The next winner might just be Mikal Bridges (who is more of a combo guard/forward who would be more easily classified as a wing). Bridges finished second behind Smart in the voting, leaving perennial DPOY candidate, and three-time winner, Rudy Gobert in third.
“(There is a) lack of physicality that can be pursued by us guards on the defensive end, compared to the bigs,” Smart said. “The bigs get away with a lot more contact than the guards do on the perimeter. So to be able to do the things that we're doing, with having that disadvantage, I think it really speaks for us and really shows the impact us guard really make and really have on the game.”
Defense is also very tough to measure. There aren’t many consistent measurables that include what Smart and perimeter defenders can do. Even the most astute voters acknowledge that the best metrics available tend to favor big men. Smart’s rapid ascent from “guy people know is a good defender” to “DPOY frontrunner” seemed to be tied to Boston’s success as a team (and Phoenix’s), and Utah’s drop to fifth in the West following a string of late collapses.
Like it or not, narrative factors into the voting, and Boston had been climbing to the top of the East behind its top-ranked defense, and there didn’t seem to be any consideration for any Celtics in the conversation for this award. The same could be said about the Phoenix Suns, the third-ranked defense. That Bridges and Smart suddenly vaulted to the top of the conversation is telling.
(Golden State was second in defense, but their best defender, Draymond Green, missed too many games to really be considered.)
Smart is simply the heart and soul of this Celtics defense. It’s a defense full of good and willing defenders. It has players who are capable of making spectacular plays, but Smart is the gasoline that makes the engine run.
It’s not just the quick-strike steals or the times he effectively switches onto big men. Smart organizes the defense from the start, and is constantly barking out direction and orders that put his teammates in position to defend. He’s aware of the other team’s plans and knows what it takes to blow those plays up. It might not always work, but such is life for an NBA guard in 2022.
But Smart is the on-court brains behind Boston’s lock-down defense. Even as other players emerged as contenders for the award, including Robert Williams, who got a first-place vote, his teammates were pushing for Smart to be the guy.
“My energy, I base it off of his defensive presence,” Williams said earlier this season. “When I see him attack the other team, I wanna follow that. I wanna follow that routine, so he got my vote 100 percent. … He taught me how to listen more on the court. Being able to react on the fly, you gotta be able to listen to everything, see everything.”
Smart is deserving, though not all will agree. Smart is expecting to hear the arguments against him. In fact, he welcomes them.
“I mean, I've always said that without those naysayers, doubters or what we like to call haters, I wouldn't be able to go out there and do what I do,” he said. “It inspires me to continue to strive to be the greatest I can be at what I do. What I have to say to them is thank you, keep it up.”
