By Jake Mckay

January 24, the day after the Los Angeles Lakers played the Boston Celtics was when  Marcus Smart swiped a picture frame which resulted in a hand injury that would keep him out for 3 weeks. During that time frame, the Boston Celtics have played 11 games and have only had a record of 6-5 (.545 Win %), which has allowed the Toronto Raptors to claim the top seed in the Eastern Conference. Before the Smart injury, the Celtics were 35-14 (.714 Win %) which would currently be the 3rd best winning percentage in the league. The differences in those two winning percentages are (.169), and in an NBA season, that accounts for 13.8 wins. This differential can easily mark the gap between having the top seed and not even making the playoffs.

A second thing that stands out is that the Celtics were just 3-4 (.428) against teams with winning records during the period that Smart was injured. However, before this, the Celtics were 17-10 (.629). While on the court, Smart plays hard, aggressive defense and handles much of the team’s the dirty work so that players like Kyrie Irving, Jaylen Brown and Al Horford can handle their jobs.

To quote Kyrie Irving “Well, yeah. It’s just the appreciation of Marcus Smart there, Just implementing him, and him just putting his stamp and identity on our team as well, it just makes a lot of other guys’ jobs a lot easier because he covers up a lot of our mistakes as well as playing with unbelievable awareness on both ends of the floor. He understands spacing. He understands the little things that matter in putting a full 48-minute game together.” Even though many will say that Smart is just a solid role player, he is the key to the Celtics success this year. Some may say that it will be a smart move to keep him at the trade deadline.