Boston Celtics
He punched a picture frame after a close loss to the Lakers. Now, with the glass still in his hand, he plays for them.
Lakers guard Marcus Smart. AP Photo/Chris Carlson
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Back in 2018, when Marcus Smart was playing for the Celtics, he almost paid a big price for a moment of frustration.
He missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer in a January road game against the Lakers, and the Celtics lost by one point.
According to a recent profile by ESPN’s Dave McMenanmin, Smart was thinking about that shot when he lost his temper and punched a picture frame in his hotel room, leaving a 5-inch piece of glass stuck in his palm.
“I got rushed to the ER and lost a lot of blood,” Smart said. “I passed out. … That’s how much I lost.”
The wound required 20 stitches to fix, and there’s still a piece of glass in the hand to this day. But, Smart was lucky that it wasn’t worse, a doctor told him. The damage could have been permanent.
“The doctor looked at me in my eye and told me, ‘I don’t know how you still have use of your right hand,’” Smart said. “‘You should honestly be thanking God every day.’”
According to ESPN, the glass was millimeters away from rendering the hand useless, something that would have been problematic for a normal person, let alone one of the best defensive players in the NBA.
“They said it laid perfectly in between every tendon in my hand without damaging anything,” Smart said. “And they had to leave the extra piece in, because they said it will cause more damage if we go get it out.”
The injury cost him 11 games, but he was back in time for the playoffs. The Celtics made a deep run, finishing one game short of a trip to the NBA Finals. They lost Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals to LeBron and the Cavaliers during Jayson Tatum’s rookie year.
Fast forward eight years later, and Marcus Smart is playing with LeBron for the Lakers. But, it took a winding road to get there. He spent four more years with the Celtics before Boston sent him to Memphis in a shocking summer trade. He spent a season and a half with the Grizzlies battling more injuries before Memphis traded him to Washington at the trade deadline in 2025.
“I’ve had two dislocations with torn ligaments in two of the fingers,” Smart said. “I’ve had glass in my hand. I’ve torn ligaments on my right thumb and had surgery there. I dislocated four out of my five fingers in total … my whole right hand just has been through a lot. So to be honest, I’m blessed to even have my right hand.”
“For six years after the incident with the glass, I still had glass in my hand and I played with it. And there would be times where, because of that, my hand would go numb. A lot of times, a lot of games, I couldn’t control it. I had to play and there were a lot of times when I’m shooting the ball and just, I had no feeling in the arm, the hand.”
He said his short stint with the Wizards was “great,” adding that he needed that time to get healthy. He signed with the Lakers as a free-agent after his contract expired. He has played in more games this season [57] than he did the previous two seasons combined [53].
“He competes every night,” the Lakers’ Austin Reaves said. “It’s not always pretty, but his competitive level’s going to be at an all-time high every single night. And you need guys like that. I think he’s the one that sets the example for us on the court to go out there and play as hard as we possibly can, because you know he’s going to do that.”
The grittiness and defensive effort that made Smart a fan favorite in Boston earned him a chance to write a new chapter with the Lakers, who are third in the Western Conference with the playoffs quickly approaching.
“He’s made an impact on winning,” Redick said. “And I think that ultimately is … that’s how you rewrite the narrative of your career, is if you’re on a winning team.”
Khari A. Thompson
Khari Thompson covers professional sports for Boston.com. Before joining the team in 2022, Khari covered college football for The Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss.
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