Boston Celtics: Marcus Smart looks every bit like a Defensive Player of the Year candidate

Seen by many as the heart and soul of this Boston Celtics team, Marcus Smart is making a strong case for himself as a legitimate Defensive Player of the Year candidate in 2019-20.

Through their first 14 games, the Boston Celtics have proven to be one of the best team’s the league has to offer in 2019-20. At 11-3, Boston currently holds the second best record in the entire Eastern Conference and the third best throughout the entire association.

Kemba Walker has been an absolute dream fit with the team so far. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have looked the parts of NBA All-Stars. Gordon Hayward — prior to his hand injury — seems to be back to his pre-2017-18 form.

However, quite possibly the Boston Celtics’ most valuable player thus far in 2019-20 has been their longest tenured talent — Marcus Smart.

Smart, Beantown’s fifth year combo-guard out of Oklahoma State, is coming off of easily his best year in the association. Averaging nine points and four assists a game to go along with career highs in steals (1.8), field goal (42%) and 3-point percentage (36%) in 2018-19, the, then, 24-year-old was playing at an entirely new level than he ever had prior. Always known as a defensive stalwart, Smart finally received honors that, frankly, he’s been deserving for quite some time — NBA All-Defense (first team, nonetheless).

Now, in the early stages of this new year, the 25-year-old is seemingly playing better than he was last season, which begs the question: how high is the guard’s ceiling? So far, it would appear that an easy guess would be, at the very least, a candidate for the league’s Defensive Player of the Year award.

Look, I know it sounds like quite a stretch, as only two guards since 1988 have won such honors — Michael Jordan and Gary Payton — but if any player at the position could do it, it’s Smart.

Boston’s 6-3 guard has shown the capability of covering literally any position in the early stages of this season. The self-proclaimed “stretch-6” has been assigned to an opposing team’s best offensive option quite often by coach Brad Stevens and, while regularly his assignments tower over him, Smart has done a phenomenal job of holding them in check.

This season, Smart has squared up against many tantalizing talents, such as Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic, just to name a few. In these outings, the guard — four feet shorter than Doncic and almost a foot shorter than Antetokounmpo — help both of them to five or less points, and even had Doncic shooting an abysmal 20% shooting from the field.

Most recently, the Boston Celtics played the Los Angeles Clippers in what many are already deeming “the game of the year.” In the contest, we saw Smart seeing his fair share of defensive efforts coming against the likes of Paul George and Kawhi Leonard — two opponents that nave make it easy on a defender.

In this tough matchup, however, the guard played the roll of ball stopper and constantly got in the way of these two players finding individual successes. In specific, Smart pulled out the “defensive play of the year” so far, as shown below.

While the Celtics ultimately lost this contest, the blame cannot fall on Smart’s defensive efforts — offensive maybe, but certainly not defensive. So far on the season, Marcus Smart ranks within the top-20 in defensive win shares and fourth among all players 6-foot-4 and under.

Currently speaking, Smart is as good, if not better than he was last year when he received NBA All-Defensive First Team honors. So far in 2019-20, the combo-guard looks to be having a season that could lead to legitimate contention for the Defensive Player of the Year award.