Celtics Guard Marcus Smart Brings Basketball Camp Home To Waltham

WALTHAM, MA — Marcus Smart held his first basketball camp in Waltham in 2015 the year after the Celtics drafted him in the first round. Through injuries, trade rumors and uncertainty about his future in Boston heading into free agency last June, he returned each June pledging to be back the next summer as long as he remained in green. This week, he once again made good on his promise at Brandeis University as the longest-tenured Celtics player greeted some of his youngest and most passionate fans at his YounGameChanger Camp.

"It started here," he said as more than 100 campers enveloped him upon his arrival Tuesday afternoon. "When I was drafted, the first gym I was going to was in Waltham."

While the Celtics are no longer city residents since moving from the Winter Street practice facility to Brighton, Smart said it was important for him to stay loyal to Waltham and Brandeis for all the love the city has shown him during his five years in the NBA. He said it is also important for him to be a fixture at his camp each summer.

"When I (was young and) saw somebody's name on a camp, and they didn't show up, it was devastating," he said. "I wanted to try to change that with my platform as an athlete. I wanted to actually be here for these kids. They see me day in and day out and it’s really interactive."

"Marcus Smart is here a lot," confirmed camper Martin Wagner, who will be a freshman at Weston High in the fall and has been to all five Smart camps in Waltham. "Unlike other camps where people just have it and never show up."

Smart arrived shortly after noon on Tuesday and immediately drew an adoring crowd of campers who converged on the player who was named NBA All-Defensive First Team this season and received the league’s new "Hustle Award" at Monday's NBA Awards Night in Los Angeles.

"It's a good atmosphere," said 10-year-old Jameson Young, of Waltham. "It's pretty cool. He's a person where he's winning all the big-time awards. So it's kind of cool to learn from him."

"I feel like you learn a lot," added Oliver O’Donnell, an incoming freshman at Weston High who has been at every Smart camp. "The coaches really help you improve. You just work on your all-around game and it’s not just playing basketball. It's teaching you lessons in between at lunch and in the morning."

Smart said he hopes one of those lessons will come from the attributes that define him as a player. He admitted that he is not the highest scorer or fanciest dribbler in the game. But he hopes the way he impacts Boston's fortunes through his defense, effort and willingness to sacrifice his body for the team’s success will be an example to his young campers that there are many different ways to help a basketball team win.

"They see Steph Curry and they see the LeBron James," Smart said. "You know those are the players the kids – and a lot of adults as well – want to be. That's cool and everything. But you have to understand that those guys are blessed with a different type of ability. So you teach them the things that will still make you be able to be a good basketball player, and still contribute, and still do something amazing with your talents.

"It doesn’t have to be scoring 30 points a game. It doesn’t have to be jumping out of the gym. You don't have to be the fastest. It's the little things that you can control — like hustling — and that's what we try to teach them."