LAS VEGAS -- Off Zhaire Smith went, sprinting back in transition and hunting for a block. The Philadelphia 76ers wing crossed the 3-point line just as his prey, Tiwian Kendley, picked up his dribble to elevate for what should have been an easy dunk. In a flash, Smith caught all the way up. He leaped from behind the dotted line and swatted the ball out of Kendley's hands.
The block was spectacular, clean and timed perfectly. In less than three seconds of a summer league game against the Washington Wizards, it showed what the 76ers saw in Smith, the No. 16 pick in this June's draft. Reminded of it after the fact, Smith referred to it as a simple hustle play.
"That comes naturally," Smith told CBS Sports. "I've been doing that all my life."
For anyone except truly exceptional athletes, feats like that are out of reach. For Smith, they are woven into the fabric of his love for the game. He grew up playing football, but soon after his father introduced him to basketball, he found himself "blocking shots, chase-down blocks, just doing out-of-the-ordinary things that a fifth-grader, sixth-grader couldn't do," he said.
This is a player who threw down a 360 alley-oop in an NCAA Tournament game with Texas Tech and registered a 45-inch vertical at a pre-draft workout with the Denver Nuggets. Even his missed dunks are breathtaking -- in that game against the Wizards at the Thomas & Mack Center, Smith exploded off a cut and bonked a one-hander off the rim. His explanation: "I dunked it too hard."
There are plenty of prospects, though, who never figure out how to channel their athleticism properly. Some of them end up in Las Vegas year after year, fighting for coveted NBA roster spots or, if they're not so lucky, hoping an international team will take notice. The Sixers would not have invested in Smith without a strong belief that he is different.
On draft night, Philadelphia coach Brett Brown told reporters that the team was "star-hunting." The Sixers earned praise for getting their hands on an unprotected 2021 draft pick -- a potential trade chip in any number of hypothetical blockbusters -- along with Smith in the deal that sent No. 10 pick (and hometown hero) Mikal Bridges to the Phoenix Suns. What went largely unnoticed was that, in the same sentence, Brown said they were "star-developing." That is where Smith comes in.
While Smith does not have the pedigree of Joel Embiid or Ben Simmons, he has the tools to be a core part of the team alongside them. As much as any player on Philadelphia's roster, he will be a test subject for the organization's extremely well-regarded development program. Sometimes, being labeled a "project" isn't such a bad thing -- the Sixers will be able to experiment with him.
Smith's friends send him clips of his highlight-reel plays.
"Sometimes, I surprise myself," he said. The mere fact he is already an NBA player, though, is as stunning as any of his aerial artistry. Smith ranked 194th in his high school class and came off the bench for the first two months of his lone college season. He is 6-foot-5 and played center in high school and power forward in college, but attracted attention because teams saw him a versatile wing, the most valuable commodity in the modern NBA.
When Smith watched the NBA playoffs this season, it wasn't hard for him to picture himself fitting in. In the Western Conference finals, the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets switched just about every screen, sometimes playing four or five similarly sized players in the same lineup.
"We do that a lot," Smith thought to himself. "We're switching 1 through 4 sometimes. All right, so that's what's the game's coming to, just switching and being able to guard different positions."
Smith was used to defending all types of players and being a matchup problem on the other end. In high school, it was easy for him to blow by opposing centers. In college, he was instructed to front the post when matched up with a traditional big man. "It's all heart," he said, adding that he knows little tricks and understands how to handle the physicality when battling on the inside. He believes this separates him from other players his size.
"Some people would just probably be like, 'I'm a guard, I can't,'" Smith said. "They don't even try to guard him. They'd be like, 'Man, he's too big.'"
Thanks to his sudden rise and the aforementioned aerial acrobatics, Smith knows observers can overlook other parts of his game. He said he stands out defensively because of his effort. Really, it's also instincts. His most impressive sequence in Las Vegas might not have been his ridiculous putback dunk or inbounds alley-oop, but rather this play against the Los Angeles Lakers:
Locked in away from the ball, Smith helped at the exact right time, knocked the ball loose, immediately ran the floor and earned an assist, turning defense into offense in about five seconds. His speed helped make it happen, but it would not have been possible without awareness and reaction time, two of the qualities that differentiate him from swing-for-the-fences draft picks.
Smith might have just turned 19 in June, but his rawness has been overstated and his feel for the game remains underrated. Both he and the organization that drafted him are thinking big.
After one of Smith's two pre-draft workouts with the Sixers, Brown compared him to a player he coached with the San Antonio Spurs. Kawhi Leonard is now a superstar, but seven years ago he was a No. 15 pick who played power forward in college and was told he had to improve his jump shot and ballhandling. Leonard just so happens to be one of Smith's favorite players, and he certainly isn't shying away from lofty comparisons.
"It felt amazing," Smith said. "That just motivated me and gave me toughness, just being compared to a person that I looked up to."
Another player Smith admires: DeMar DeRozan. The four-time All-Star was seen as a long-term project when he was drafted No. 10 overall in 2009, but the Toronto Raptors bet on his work ethic and personality. In his rookie season, DeRozan mostly stood in the corner, serving as the team's fifth option on offense. When he did get buckets, they were mostly through opportunistic slashing or getting out in transition.
"We're kind of similar," Smith said. "They said he couldn't shoot last season and he improved that this season. And that's what I'm willing to do. We're kind of built the same, and just the athleticism -- I just watch how he grows and elevates."
Smith watched Leonard become a No. 1 option and one of the best all-around players on the planet. He watched DeRozan transform his game with expert footwork and a tighter handle. He might not be much of an off-the-dribble playmaker right now, but he plans to be.
"That's why I'm in the gym right now working on it," he said.
According to Smith, he has already surprised Philadelphia's coaches with the hours he is logging in the gym. Basketball has not officially been his job for long, but his approach hasn't had to change much. In his high school days, he'd hit Life Time Fitness at 5:30 in the morning so he could get a workout in before class started.
At summer league, Smith was fascinating to watch but never the star of the show. The way he made his cuts at the right time, dished nifty no-look passes and challenged shots at the rim, it was easy to imagine him functioning as a role player next to Embiid and Simmons in a few months. The Sixers' style of play -- fast-paced, with an emphasis on ball movement and an aggressive defensive scheme -- suits his strengths, and their personnel will free him to be more of a finisher than a creator for now.
What's most exciting about Smith, though, is what is possible. There is no perfect formula to calculate the likelihood of him reaching his full potential, but there is no question that his upside is immense. As sudden as his rise has been, as much as his life has changed in the past few months, Smith allows himself to picture the kind of player he can be when his work with Brown's staff pays off, when everything comes together.
"I look forward to it," Smith said. "It's just another story like Kawhi Leonard. They said how he needed to develop out of college, and I feel like if I improve that and make that happen, it's going to be another story about me."
