A few days ago I sat down with a plan to write about the Marcus Smart trade. It seemed like a straightforward task. I had spent the prior couple of days digesting the deal, which sent Smart to Memphis in exchange for Kristaps Porzingis, and I had reached my conclusions. Sometimes with TOA I've found that writing is more like transcribing, particularly in cases like this one where the topic had been on my mind, so I thought I'd have something written and posted within an hour. Naturally, I got stuck about as soon as I started writing.
Where to begin? The logical starting point felt like examining the trade from a tactical perspective. I'm admittedly not the city's most dedicated Celtics fan, tuning in pretty much exclusively during the playoffs, but combining my experience as a college basketball player with the forty or so games I've seen over the past couple of years gives me enough of a foundation to offer reasonable insights. It struck me that last season the Celtics seemed to have three main areas for improvement - offensive consistency, passing, and late-game defense against elite perimeter players. This trade doesn't seem to help the team in any of those areas. But the problem with this approach is that such analysis is, for the most part, nonsense. There's no real way to prove your point. The best you can do is put your bets down now, so to speak, on what you think will happen, then see the results during the season. But even then, whatever happens next spring will just be one outcome out of many possibilities, and luck often plays enough of a factor to render most analysis inconclusive. There is also the more basic reality that so many things could still change between now and then (such as another trade). In other words, to write about this trade means I'll have to write knowingly about what I don't know (a definition I'm sure will be familiar to longtime readers). I'll leave this esteemed task to the paid professionals.
I guess this means I should write about what I do know. I know that when you are leading a team there are certain qualities you just can't teach, and that the only way to build them into the team is to have team members set the example for others. Smart's toughness, hustle, and intelligence are hardly unique qualities but the combination of these in one player might be a different story. These are also qualities that represent areas for improvement at a team level. Crucially, losing these qualities in a team is hard to notice until they deteriorate beyond the point of repair, so I worry that the team may now be on a trajectory for these qualities to become significant enough weaknesses such that they offset any technical improvement from making the trade. I also know that teams require a certain unity to overcome obstacles, and although this is an intangible quality I think from observation the Celtics had the right level of togetherness in these past two seasons. Due to their extended playoff runs, the Celtics have basically played an extra half-season of basketball over the past two years (and sacrificed two months of off-season rest to do so). Therefore, one obvious consideration for this year is burnout. Does this trade strengthen the team's ability to stick together throughout the long grind of making another attempt at a championship? Something tells me that Smart's leadership as a proven veteran leader in the team will be missed in the exact moment when it's needed the most.
But the thing I can't get past is how back when I used to play basketball it was a nightmare to play against a guy like Smart. When I lined up against an opponent like Smart, I knew he was going to make the game as difficult for me as possible, and that it would take everything I had to compete against him. I don't know enough about Porzingis to say if he's the same type of opponent but my suspicion is that rival players would prefer to play against Porzingis rather than Smart. What I am talking about here regards NBA players so I understand a comparison to my modest experience is a bit of a stretch. It's possible that being a professional basketball player means these kinds of considerations are left for those like me, the obnoxious combination of Division 3 never-was and internet "writer". And yet, if I'm reminded of anything during the NBA playoffs it's that elite performance is as much mental as it is physical. In the playoffs, athletes who might hit one hundred shots in a row during practice suddenly find themselves unable to string together consecutive baskets. Others who are comfortable taking the initiative during the regular season start passing it to the next guy when the consequence of defeat is elimination. There is a certain mental edge that a player needs to have in order to thrive under pressure and you often don't know if they have it until you put them into these games. If my goal was to win the championship, I would collect as many guys as possible who had the mental edge, then do everything in my power to keep those players. Smart, for all his shortcomings, had the mental edge, so it worries me that the Celtics traded him for a player with no history of the same.
The title of this post hints at how I feel but it's actually not a great representation - the puns write themselves on TOA and as usual I couldn't help myself. The people who made this decision have forgotten more about basketball than I'll ever know so I don't raise my objections with full conviction. I mostly wanted to write them down just so I have something to look back on a year from now. But the reality is that mistakes are made all the time. In the case of this trade there is the obvious point that Memphis, a championship contender just like the Celtics, identified Smart as a way to help them reach their goal. Around here the talk is about how the trade impacts the Celtics but in terms of evaluating the trade it might help to think about what Memphis got in the deal. What I think is that Memphis prioritized certain qualities at the expense of others, then identified Smart as one player who fit their priorities. On the other hand, the Celtics prioritized different qualities and acquired them in the trade. My hunch is that Memphis acquired the qualities that matter far more in determining a championship team. These are the qualities that can override the technical advantages of basketball skill or team tactics that the Celtics gained from the trade. Time will offer its own verdict on the trade so perhaps the only thing left to do now is to wait and see, but as far as my reaction is concerned I'm less optimistic today than I was two weeks ago regarding the Celtics winning next year's championship.
