NYPG Blue
By Pat Cassidy Marlon Smith is tall for his age - about 5-foot-9 - and as far as kids go, he’s cut up, but take one look at his boyish face and your first inclination is to say there’s no way this kid is old enough to go to an R-rated movie alone. He’s wearing a faded reversible jersey and equally faded shorts to go with tattered Nike kicks. You get the feeling, though, that Marlon doesn’t care about all that. He just wants to ball. Only a 15-year-old sophomore in high school, this kid from the Bronx is a point prodigy with a wicked j, the heir to the throne once occupied by the likes of other NYC point guard deities like Stephon Marbury, Kenny Anderson, Rod Strickland and Tiny Archibald. The funny thing is, though, that when it’s all said and done, Marlon could make the old men who hang on the corner rehashing tall tales forget all about the Stephs and the Tinys of yesteryear. "Let me tell you about the time I saw Marlon Smith" will not be an uncommon phrase. People are already telling the stories. There was the time in grade school when he set his school’s record for points in a single game with 53. There was the time this summer, at the Eastern Invitational Camp, when, in front of a packed house, Marlon crossed over a defender so hard on the wing, the kid fell flat on his face. There was the time, also this summer, when he hung 30 in the AAU National Championship in Tennessee. And, of course, there was the time Marlon dropped 73 points in an AAU game and checked out with over six minutes to go. "Not many 14-year olds have the opportunity that I
do," says Marlon, who already has the UConn Huskies
beating down his door. "But at the same time, I don’t
let any of the attention that I get go to my head. I
work hard every day, out here and in school, trying to
be as perfect as I can. I want people to see me as an
eloquent speaker, as a smart kid overall. I don’t want
people to see me as just another basketball player."
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