Boston Celtics: Complex Sports suggests Marcus Smart could be moved

The Boston Celtics come into Wednesday’s game fresh off a definitive victory over the Chicago Bulls to kick off the week.

While a majority of eyes were on Jayson Tatum, as it was his first outing in five games, the entire core for the Cs performed beautifully, especially their Swiss Army man, Marcus Smart.

Having arguably his best offensive outing of the season, the 26-year-old stuffed the stat sheet with 13 points, 11 rebounds, five rebounds, and two steals in 26 minutes of play.

Frankly, a performance such as this should come as no surprise, for Smart is in the midst of yet another fantastic season with the Celtics, posting career-high per-game averages in points (13.6), assists (6.2), steals (1.9), blocks (.5), and field goal percentage, knocking his buckets in at a 40 percent clip.

With all this in mind, it may come as a bit perplexing to see that Complex Sports believes the anointed lifeblood of Boston Celtics basketball could be moved before the March 25th trade deadline.

Could the Boston Celtics actually consider trading Marcus Smart?

Citing his team-friendly contract coupled with his defensive chops and Boston’s link to several available players on the trade block, writer Aaron Mansfield sees Smart as being viewed as a prized trade-chip by a bevy of teams across the league:

"There will be strong competition for the conference title, with Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn all looking good in the early going—and even if you get past that crop of killers, you know there’ll be someone great repping the West.Smart is an annual All-Defense type of player and has greatly improved offensively since entering the league. But he’s not one of the Celtics’ two untouchables: Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.Rumors have linked the Celtics to Oladipo, though he seems to be craving Miami, as well as Blake Griffin (Detroit) and Myles Turner (Indiana), which is unsurprising given Boston’s dearth of talent in the front court. A deal for any of those big names would probably need to involve Smart."

This piece by Complex follows the same mindset Bleacher Report shared a few days before, calling the seventh-year pro the best trade asset the Boston Celtics currently have.

Though Mansfield started off by stating that the team likely doesn’t want to trade Marcus Smart, followed by him calling the guard the “heart and soul” of Celtics basketball, two pieces discussing how he could be expendable coming out in the span of less than a week is a bit concerning to the Houdini.