On the night of a missed shot that haunted him, Marcus Smart did something that would quietly define the next six years of his basketball life. After failing to convert a potential game-winner for the Boston Celtics against the Los Angeles Lakers in 2018, he returned to his hotel room in a rage and punched a picture frame. The frame shattered. A large piece of glass drove deep into his right palm.
The bleeding was severe enough to require emergency medical attention. Doctors told him afterward how close he had come to something far worse. The glass had settled in a position that somehow avoided every tendon in his hand. The margin was described as millimeters. Removing one fragment entirely, they said, carried more risk than leaving it in place. So they did, and Smart left the hospital with a piece of glass still embedded in his hand. He would play the next six seasons that way.
The years that followed
After 20 stitches and 11 games missed, Smart returned to the court. Almost no one outside of his inner circle knew what was in his hand. In 2022, he became the first guard since Gary Payton to win the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year award and helped the Celtics advance to the NBA Finals, where they fell to the Golden State Warriors.
The following summer, Boston traded Smart to the Memphis Grizzlies in a three-team deal that brought Kristaps Porzingis to the Celtics. Porzingis proved to be the final piece of the championship puzzle, and Boston won the title in 2024. Smart, meanwhile, was navigating a different reality. He averaged a career-high 14.2 points per game for Memphis but played only 20 games due to injury. A subsequent season split between Memphis and the Washington Wizards yielded just 34 games combined, with finger injuries compounding the original damage to his right hand.
The full picture of what his hand had endured over those years became clearer when Smart spoke about it publicly. Beyond the embedded glass, he had dealt with torn ligaments in multiple fingers, a torn ligament in his right thumb requiring surgery and four dislocated fingers across five. Each injury layered onto the last. There were stretches during games, he said, when his hand would go completely numb. He had no feeling in his arm or hand while attempting shots. He played through it anyway, because that was the only option he had allowed himself.
A second chance with the Lakers
Following the 2024-25 season, Smart and the Wizards agreed to a buyout. He wanted to compete for a championship and made clear he was not interested in finishing out his career on a rebuilding team. Luka Doncic reached out, and Smart signed a two-year deal worth $11 million with the Lakers, making him one of only 42 players in league history to suit up for both franchises.
The move has proven to be well-timed for both sides. The Lakers had a clear defensive need entering the season, and Smart has filled it. He has started 49 of 56 games, averaging 9.6 points and 1.4 steals per game while ranking second in the entire league in charges drawn. His steals rate leads the team.
The numbers only tell part of the story. The energy Smart brings on the defensive end has rippled through the roster in ways that do not always show up in box scores. His hustle, his positioning and his willingness to take hits that other players avoid have made the Lakers harder to play against night after night.
For a player who was told by a doctor that he should consider himself fortunate to still have use of his right hand, the fact that he is playing at this level, on this stage, six years after that hotel room in 2018, is something few would have predicted.
