Collin Sexton was floated, not reported, as a Boston Celtics free agency target and for good reason. Not only can he score, but he can score efficiently. Scoring is and always has been his specialty. The last reason why anyone would have signed a player like Sexton would be his defense.
Sexton ultimately signed with the Celtics' archenemy, the Los Angeles Lakers, this summer. No one in Boston's losing sleep over that, but what should catch the eye of the collective Celtics' fanbase is that Sexton discussed how he could play like Marcus Smart in his first media availability.
You read that right. Even crazier, it didn't stop there.
“I would say so. I watched a lot of the playoffs, I watched a lot of (Smart) over the years, but also I would just say his mindset,” Sexton said in his first media availability. “How can I be in the right spot? How can I make plays? Like you said, I’m always scoring, but how can I make plays on the defensive end? How can I get the one more or the hockey assist? Those little things."
“And also, I watched a little bit of Avery Bradley as well. How he was able to change the pace on defense, and that was a while ago. But just watching him and his competitive nature, that’s my guy, so I was like, you know what? How did he impact winning when he was here? And I feel like those two guys, I’ve been able to really lock in on because I feel like I can bring that to this team.”
Look, Sexton is a quality player and the Lakers got him on a good deal, but it's not that he has never shown himself to be in the same breath as Marcus Smart. It's that he's never been close. Sad fact about Sexton: he's never been in the playoffs, which honestly isn't entirely on him, but if he had Smart's abilities, he probably would have done it by now.
But hey, if that's what he hopes to be for the Lakers, then all the power to him. We should expect that experiment to go about as well as the last time a score-first Lakers guard tried to compare himself to an elite Celtics defender.
That's right, Celtics fans. This has happened before.
D'Angelo Russell wanted to emulate Derrick White
You know what's even funnier about this situation is that Sexton's not the first score-first Lakers guard to compare himself to an elite Celtics defender. D'Angelo Russell admitted something similar almost three years ago.
“My inspiration is Derrick White. I want to be Derrick White. He doesn’t get a lot of credit for what he does. Makes all the winning plays, and that's who I want to be.”
Props to Russell for recognizing how unrecognized White's impact was back then, but surprising absolutely no one, he wasn't able to make that transition because, simply put, that wasn't his game. I mean, getting compared to Derrick White is an honor, but if it were that easy, White's value would be much lower, no?
The only difference between Sexton now and Russell then is that the Lakers had Smart and Bradley, so they have some idea of what those two could do. Even so, for as good as Sexton is, asking him to be like Marcus Smart (even a declining version of him) is like asking a mouse to roar like a lion.
But hey, at least these Celtics are getting due, and from Lakers no less.
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