Celtics Journal: Smart eager for 'calm' of the court

CANTON — On Saturday, Marcus Smart paid final tribute to his 63-year-old mother, Camellia, at the Disciple Central Community Church in DeSoto, Texas, after she succumbed to cancer following years of difficult health battles.

On Monday, he returned to work with the Celtics.

It was right where he wanted to be. More importantly, it was right where he knew she wanted him to be. [...]

CANTON — On Saturday, Marcus Smart paid final tribute to his 63-year-old mother, Camellia, at the Disciple Central Community Church in DeSoto, Texas, after she succumbed to cancer following years of difficult health battles.

On Monday, he returned to work with the Celtics.

It was right where he wanted to be. More importantly, it was right where he knew she wanted him to be.

When Smart revealed his mother’s cancer diagnosis to the media during the first-round playoff series against the Milwaukee Bucks in April, he said it was his mother who told him to leave her side in Dallas and work his way back on the court from late-season thumb surgery. He said that day it was his mother who gave him his fight in life, and in the sport, and that it was the sport that brought him serenity in the darkest days of life.

“I look at basketball as like a storm,” he said on Monday. “But it’s the eye of the storm. If it’s a [hurricane], or something like that, the calmest place is to be in the middle — the eye of it — and that’s what basketball is for me. It’s my eye. While everyone else is going through the distraction, the destruction, and things like that, basketball keeps me calm.

“That’s probably why I go out and you see me dive on the floor. Or take a charge. Or throw my body this way and give it everything I have. Because I know, and I understand, that any day could be my last day. And, if it was, would I be proud of what I’ve accomplished in my time here?”

Smart said the last couple of months by his mother’s side have been humbling, and that he is grateful to have such a support structure both in Texas and in Boston.

That support structure was briefly tested early in the summer when there were reports Smart was hurt that the team was not acting with more urgency to re-sign him as a restricted free agent. But that all passed three weeks into free agency when he agreed to a four-year contract worth about $52 million.

“There’s no bad feelings between me and the organization,” he said Monday. “I knew coming in that this was a business. Sometimes we overlook the business side because we build a relationship personally with certain people, certain organizations, certain teams. But at the same time it’s a business.

“They were just doing their business part like I was, and we came to an agreement, and I’m back. I love Boston and Boston loves me.”

Smart said it touched his heart that so many with the Celtics showed their love with an outpouring of emotion toward him and his family this weekend.

“To see those guys show up at the service was actually a surprise to me,” he said. “I didn’t think anybody was really going to show up. I knew Brad [Stevens] said he was coming. And a couple of coaches. But my teammates — Al [Horford], Terry [Rozier], Jaylen [Brown], Daniel Theis — some of those guys showing up, and everybody else showing up, meant a lot to me and my family, and just shows how much this organization, as a family, cares for one another.”

Free-agent talk

Boston’s other key free agent this summer was Aron Baynes. But, unlike Smart, the Baynes negotiations wrapped up quickly with the 31-year-old center agreeing to a two-year deal shortly after midnight on the July 1 start of free agency.

“I felt it was unfinished [business],” Baynes said of his desire to return to the Celtics to push for a title after coming within one win of the NBA Finals last year. “I knew that I wanted to come back here.

“In 2014 with the [NBA champion San Antonio] Spurs, everybody set aside their egos so we could be great. I see the same things here.”

Horford, who signed a maximum-salary contract two years ago, said he is not thinking about his potential free-agency year with an opt out in his four-year deal after this season. “I’m very grateful, and happy, with what we are building here with Boston,” he said. “When I came here two summers ago, Danny [Ainge], and Wyc [Grousbeck] and coach, kind of sold me on this mission that we’re going to be able to stack this type of time. I believed them then. And I made a commitment that I wanted to be the best that I can and win a championship here.”