Marcus Smart’s next stop keeps him close to home.
The former Oklahoma State star agreed to a two-year, $13 million deal with the Houston Rockets on Wednesday, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. The contract includes a player option for the second season. For Smart, it’s a return to Texas and the nearest he’s been to Stillwater since entering the league in 2014.
Smart is heading into his 13th NBA season and will be 32 next year. Houston becomes the fifth team of his career, and every one of those changes has come since 2023.
He also lands in a familiar coaching setup. Smart is reuniting with Rockets coach Ime Udoka, who coached the Celtics from 2021 to 2023, covering the final two seasons of Smart’s run in Boston. Charania described the move as giving Smart a “significant opportunity in the Rockets backcourt.”
Houston’s roster already includes Kevin Durant, Steven Adams, Alperen Sengun and others. The Rockets finished fifth in the Western Conference last season, and Smart and the Lakers knocked them out 4-2 in the first round of the NBA Playoffs.
Last season, Smart played alongside LeBron James with the Los Angeles Lakers and helped them finish as the West’s No. 4 seed. In that stretch, he averaged 9.3 points, 2.8 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game.
Before that, he spent 15 games with the Washington Wizards after the Memphis Grizzles sent him to the nation’s capital. Memphis had acquired him in the trade that sent Kristaps Porzingis to the Celtics, and he played 39 games across two seasons with the Grizzlies.
Even with all those stops, Smart’s career is still most closely tied to Boston. The Celtics selected him sixth overall in the 2014 NBA Draft, and he went on to spend nine seasons there, earning three NBA All-Defensive Team selections and the 2022 Defensive Player of the Year award.
At Oklahoma State, Smart built the résumé that made him a lottery pick in the first place. He was the Big 12 Player of the Year and an All-American in 2013 as a freshman, then came back for his sophomore season and was an All-American again. Across his two years in orange and black, he averaged 16.6 points, 5.9 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 2.9 steals per game.
In Other News...
Oregon States Split With Keith Heyward Just Turned Much Uglier
The split between Oregon State and former defensive coordinator Keith Heyward has moved from a personnel matter to a legal one. The university has filed a breach of contract lawsuit seeking damages tied to an unpaid buyout and relocation money, turning what had already been a messy departure into a public dispute with financial stakes attached.
Heyward resigned in January after a difficult stretch in his personal life, then landed at Cal as defensive backs coach, but his exit from Corvallis still has not been fully put to bed. He denies OSUs allegations, and his attorney says counterclaims are coming, leaving the Beavers with a situation that is now as much about the fallout around the separation as it is about the separation itself. [Read more 🡒]
Oklahoma State Quietly Landed The Kind Of Portal Firepower Fans Notice
The 2026 Big 12 transfer board is already taking shape, and Oklahoma State has found itself in the middle of the conversation on offense. In a field being sorted by 247Sports data and last seasons production, the Cowboys are tied to the kind of additions that can change how a roster looks before anyone has even taken a spring snap, especially at quarterback and in the backfield.
Drew Mestemaker and Caleb Hawkins give Oklahoma State a different kind of profile in that rankings discussion, while Wyatt Young adds another layer to the receiving room. The bigger picture is how much the conferences quarterback and skill-position picture has been reshuffled by departures and portal movement, and the Cowboys look like they benefited from that churn in a way opposing coaches will notice. [Read more 🡒]