The Whiteboard: Who the heck was LaBradford Smith?

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Episodes 7 and 8 of The Last Dance, ESPN’s 10-part docuseries on Michael Jordan and his Chicago Bulls, focused more directly than any previous episodes on Jordan’s maniacal intensity and the chaos it often left in its wake. Perhaps the most bizarre anecdote was the story of LaBradford Smith.

A late first-round pick of the Washington Bullets, Smith was a mostly anonymous second-year guard when he somewhat surprisingly dropped 37 on Jordan and the Bulls in March of 1993. The Bulls won the game but Jordan was just 9-of-27 from the field — Smith went 15-of-20. The story Jordan told was that Smith said “nice game” to him as they were leaving the floor. That was enough to stoke Jordan’s internal rage-fire and the next night (they were playing a home-and-home back-to-back) he scored 37 on Smith, in the first half.

Of course, as the episode revealed, Jordan admitted later that Smith never actually said anything to him. As an example of Jordan’s pathological intensity, the story is disturbing in two ways — he would invent made up slights to work himself into a lather and the slights could innocuous enough to be interpreted as completely meaningless. I mean even if Smith had said “nice game” there are several million variations in the multiverse where this is not trash-talking but just a young player saying something well-meaning and unintentionally dumb to a legend.

That game was, by far, the high point of Smith’s career. It was the only time he’d top 30 points and one of just five times, in 183 career games, he’d top 20. He was taken by the then Washington Bullets with the No. 19 pick in the 1991 NBA Draft, in the midst of what would come to be an eight-season playoff drought for the franchise.

Smith had been an incredibly productive guard at Louisville, averaging 13.6 points, 5.4 assists and 2.9 rebounds per game across his four college seasons. Per 247Sports, he is still the school’s all-time career assist leader and ranks in the top-10 in both steals and points. The Bullets added him to a fairly impotent roster that had been led in scoring by Bernard King and Harvey Grant the previous season.

In Smith’s rookie season, the Bullets were focused on the interior, with Pervis Ellison (his former teammate at Louisville) and Grant leading the way. Smith was also buried in the rotation by the additions of Rex Chapman and Michael Adams, appearing in just 48 games for a total of 708 minutes.

Smith played a slightly more meaningful role the next season, the year of his tête-à-tête with Jordan, starting 33 games and averaging 22.4 minutes and 9.3 points per game. However, he clearly didn’t do enough to stick. The Wizards selected Calbert Cheaney from Indiana with the No. 6 pick in the draft that year and also added Andrew Gaze a 27-year-old high-scoring Australian who had impressed in Europe, the NBL and a season with Seton Hall where he helped lead them to the Final Four.

Smith was released after seven games with Washington and finished the year posting an uninspired stat line as a backup for the Kings. That season, 1993-94, was his last in the NBA. Amazingly, he was still able to achieve sports immortality of a sort, taking up permanent residence in Michael Jordan’s Hall of Imaginary Enemies.

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