Mike Gorman feels this member of the Boston Celtics will be next to have number retired
If you ask play-by-play announcer Mike Gorman, the next member of the Boston Celtics to have his number retired will be someone irreplaceable on the current roster.
Most fans you ask this question to would think Jayson Tatum is the answer to this question, finding it almost rhetorical.
Wrong. All of them.
It’s not Tatum nor his ‘Jays’ partner in crime, Jaylen Brown. Nope, it’s the glue guy who is quickly figuring out how to play the position he was drafted in the lottery to play…Marcus Smart:
Mike Gorman told me he believes the next number the #Celtics retire will be Marcus Smart’s
— Adam Kaufman (@AdamMKaufman) April 2, 2022
Truly, Smart is playing his way into Boston Celtics lore with his performance this year. His coming into himself season has been a major key in a late run to the top of the Eastern Conference standings.
As a lottery pick in 2014, Smart has a two year head-start on Jaylen Brown and three on Jayson Tatum. If this team is to ever win an NBA Championship, it’d take Smart continuing to play as at a star level (six assists per game in his last four since a 13-dime performance against the Utah Jazz) as the floor general.
To think that Smart was essentially trade bait back in January and early February and now is intrinsically linked to the team’s best-case scenario ceiling is a microcosm of the improvement Boston has gone for.
For a long time, it felt as though the Cs needed to send Smart away in a trade in order to really have a chance at winning anything. Now, a legendary Boston Celtics announcer feels that it’ll be #36 next that will be hanging in the rafters next.
That must mean that Smart is doing something very right.
He is. Next stop for #36 in green: the rafters of the T.D. Garden and immortality for Smart in the process should his play continue at current levels.