Why Marcus Smart is the Meanest Guy on the Court


“If somebody followed me for a day,” explained Marcus Smart, “I think what would surprise them the most is how chill of a guy I am. And how goofy I really am. I’m just a big kid, but you see me on the court, you see me in a whole different light.” 

“You’re mean on the court,” he was told. 

“I’m way meaner,” he replied with a laugh. “I’m way more intense. That’s my motto. If anyone really knows me, they understand when I step on the court in between the lines, it’s time to work. We’re going to work. And then afterwards we can have all the fun in the world. But when we’re on the court, we’re working.” 

This is exactly what the Lakers want this season—guys who will play hard and who will play hard “Every. Single. Night.” As head coach JJ Redick noted. He’s called on certain games as reference points of playing hard, games that the team can call back to, imitate, and along the course of the season surpass. 

It was their second game of the season versus Minnesota, their first encounter with the team who knocked them out of playoff contention last year, where Redick denoted the victory as his team’s first reference point of playing hard this season. 

“Did you feel it? Because I saw it. I felt it. And I didn’t play,” Redick declared. 

He wants the team to see physicality as second nature. He wants the team to make playing hard a habit.  

That’s Smart. Always has been. Effort’s non-negotiable. He learned at a young age people rely on how hard he plays, people outside of just his teammates. He experienced a heartbreak that would harden him in a certain way forever. 

“The biggest one for me is when my oldest brother passed away,” Smart explained. “I got to the hospital, and the oldest brother that was living pulls me to the side while my whole family’s crying and goes, ‘You don’t have the luxury to cry. You don’t have the luxury to be a child anymore. Those days are over. You’re the last one that mom has. If you don’t make it, the family falls.’” 

His entire world changed when he lost his brother Todd Westbrook to leukemia.  

“When that happened as a kid, my whole mindset changed. I moved my family an hour away from Dallas when I was going into my ninth-grade year. I decided we’re moving; this is what we’re going to do. And the rest is history.” 

“This was the goal?” he was asked about his career as a professional basketball player. 

He answered, “This was the goal. No looking back.” 

“Do you know what a banshee is?” Redick asked. “It’s a figure in Gaelic folklore. It’s a spirit of a dead woman who’s warning of an impending death. In Na’vi culture it’s a flying creature used for war from the movie Avatar. In the video game Halo, it’s the Covenant warship with two plasma guns. And in Laker culture, it’s somebody that’s all in, two feet in the circle, a faucet not a drain.” 

Smart’s a banshee; the faucet kind. He learned this from his mother. He explained how, being the youngest of four boys and being a “momma’s boy,” he watched his mom give her family everything they needed. He said it was a luxury to have basketball shoes, to go to school, to have a roof over his head, and it was all because of the sacrifices she made. 

“That’s exactly why I’m so tough,” he answered. “I didn’t get my own bedroom or bed until my freshman year of college. All the way through high school, I slept either on the floor or on the couch.” 

“That’s why I leave everything on the court, my brother never got the chance to,” Smart said. 

Redick knows Smart gives everything and he wants him to set the tone and be the leader of physicality for this team. 

In the Lakers’ first game against Golden State, after Smart notched his fourth personal foul, Redick said he approached him: “I was like alright, we’re good, we’re good, we’re good. You’ve got to calm yourself a little bit!” 

But Redick continued that with Smart and Jarred Vanderbilt, you’ve got to live with moments of excessive force. “That’s part of their DNA—to be disruptive,” he said. “And frankly we need that.” 

Smart’s intensity is felt through the team. Deandre Ayton said how the energy Smart brings each night can change the course of a game. He called back to when Smart checked in against Minnesota and said seeing him dive on the floor after just getting into the game struck him. It motivated Ayton to impact the game as well. 

“It’s hard to put that fight in your guys if you’re not out there doing it,” Smart explained. 

Redick knows if you’re the physical team you will incite the other team to get physical back. You’ll have the opportunity to draw fouls. Smart knows this. 

“The toughest team sets the rules,” he said. “That’s the motto. I’ve been in this league for 12 years and that’s always been the motto. You see it—the team that comes out more physical; the momentum kind of goes their way. We want to be the toughest team from the start to the end.” 

And so far, Smart’s defensive impact has influenced his teammates. It was during training camp a few months ago when Luka Dončić explained that he believed having Smart join the Lakers would make him a better defender. And in the team’s win over San Antonio, Dončić had five steals and two blocks accompanying his 35 points, 13 assists, and nine rebounds. 

“His energy on the defensive end, he does some things I’ve never seen in my life,” Dončić explained, “like how he dives for the ball. And then on the other hand, his leadership and communication on defense, it’s been everything for us.” 

Smart explained how Luka has excellent defensive capabilities, but for him to go out and put up the offensive numbers he does every night, that needs to be his main focus. And the same goes for him. They both are hellbent on their respective roles. 

Smart is so hellbent, numbers mean very little to him. In the last week of October, he was +45 through four games. In the Lakers’ second game of the season, he was +24 to which he commented, “For me, unfortunately, stats aren’t going to do me any justice. I try not to worry about it. I try to go out there and do what I’m supposed to do. Help my teammates out the best way I can. Being +24 is great, it shows the impact that can be made without touching the ball, scoring the ball, shooting the ball.” 

Really what matters the most to Smart (and Redick and his coaching staff) is playing hard. 

Redick has talked a lot about delineating playing hard and thinking you’re playing hard. Smart calls it “fake hustle.” 

“When you’re playing hard, you can feel it. You can feel the way you’re playing, you can feel the energy, your body can feel it, your mind can feel it. You’d be surprised how the game turns out because of that.” 

And Marcus learned the difference between fake hustle and real hustle when he was young. As the youngest of four boys, he explained that if you’re not playing as hard as you can, you’re going to get embarrassed. 

He remembers playing his second youngest brother in basketball. His brother hit him in the face with an elbow, so Marcus said he was done playing. But the brother wouldn’t let him quit: “Get yo’ ass back in,” Smart recalls him saying as he pushed him to the ground. 

They had a fist fight and went back to playing basketball. 

“That’s part of it. Protecting yourself and defending yourself at all costs,” Smart said.  

And where he’s grown a lot since then, that’s stayed with him. But the difference between Smart now and then is his wisdom. He lives by what you can control. 

“When we’re younger, we want everything. We want it now. We don’t understand why. We can’t understand that some things you can’t control, there’s nothing you can do to change it. And you have to be okay with accepting that,” he said. 

Surrendering seems uncharacteristic of someone who on the floor won’t surrender to anything. That’s what really captures his strength: Sometimes the shots don’t fall, sometimes they do. Sometimes we get a bad hand. Sometimes we get a few bad hands.

Smart will always show up.