Boston Celtics: “Buy or Sell” on 3 recent bold predictions for C’s season
By Mark Nilon
Boston Celtics prediction No. 2) “Marcus Smart averages 7-plus assists”
As we mentioned in the previous slide, Marcus Smart is one of the more likely candidates to nab a regular starting gig this coming season alongside Tatum and Brown.
What makes this campaign more interesting for the 27-year-old is that, for the first time in his soon-to-be eight-year career he’ll be coming in with the point guard slot — his natural position — being his to lose.
With this, Buckley believes that Smart’s current situation will make him the team’s primary playmaker and, due to his passing abilities, could lead him to have a career year in the assists department:
"He has always been a sneaky-good passer, but those contributions (and opportunities) have been muted by the presences of Walker, Kyrie Irving and Isaiah Thomas. The 27-year-old averaged a career-high 5.7 assists last season. Importantly, he also averaged just 2.0 turnovers. He can control an offense and weaponizing him as a passer might cover up his limitations as a scorer. It could also free Tatum and Brown to focus more on their own scoring, though each will chip in with shot-creating duties, too. Still, a lot of this offense will run through Smart, and he’ll take advantage of the weapons around him. By year’s end, he’ll have shattered his previous best and perhaps cracked the league’s top 10 with at least seven assists per outing."
While we at HH are in agreement with Buckley that Smart will finally have the opportunity to serve as the full-time lead guard for the Boston Celtics this season, the prediction that he will average seven or more assists by year’s end is a little difficult for us to fully get behind.
Out of his 449 regular-season games played in his career so far, only 80 of them have seen assists numbers in this specific range.
Now yes, in response I know you’ll want to bring up the fact that for the vast majority of this time he was serving in the backcourt with other ball-dominant guards such as the ones mentioned in the B/R piece and, thus, it obviously hindered his potential averages otherwise.
However, even last season when serving as the primary guard for the Boston Celtics during the first month of action that Kemba Walker was out, Smart still only went on to average six assists a night and saw only three games where he dished out seven or more dimes.
Of course, a new season brings about new opportunities and possibilities, but with first-year head coach, Ime Udoka, stating that he wishes to see more team-oriented basketball to be played while also saying he wants guys like Tatum and Brown initiating the offense, we find it hard to believe that Smart will now turn into some sort of ball-dominant floor general.