Celtics’ Marcus Smart, the “heart and soul” of the team, shares his farewell message to fans

Marcus Smart, who spent all nine of his NBA seasons with the Boston Celtics, shared a heartfelt farewell message with fans on social media on Friday. The Celtics, Washington Wizards and Memphis Grizzlies agreed to a three-team deal late Wednesday night that would send quarterback Kristaps Porzingis to the Celtics, Smart to the Grizzlies and guard Tyus Jones to the Wizards. Smart, the 2022 Defensive Player of the Year, who has been called the heart of the Celtics by many, was the longest-serving player on the list. “As I begin to reflect on the past nine years, I have a lot of feelings running through me,” Smart wrote. “I came to Boston as a naive kid from Dallas not really knowing what to expect. All I knew was the kind of work ethic my mother had instilled in me and I was going to work my ass off and make sure I earned the respect of both of them and every single fan in Boston. And that’s why. In that that was tuff.”Boston, you are a very special place to me,” Smart wrote. “I grew up here and met some of my best friends here. I will never forget my time here. “In the end we didn’t get our 18th banner, but I’m very proud of the success we had,” Smart wrote. “I will miss so many things about Boston, but mainly the teammates, the fans, the kids, and the hospital’s philanthropy. “Boston has been an amazing 9 years, thank you for all the love, but now is the time to look forward,” Smart wrote, expressing his excitement at joining the Grizzlies. Smart has been in double digits in scoring in each of his last four seasons with the Celtics while starting in all 132 of his games over the past two years.