Sometimes the smallest stories are the biggest stories, the sports stories that transcend the games. This is one of those stories.
It was the reunion lost amid David Fizdale's embraces last weekend with Erik Spoelstra when the Miami Heat played the Memphis Grizzlies, former Heat assistant returning as opposing coach. It was the story of fortitude the exceeded what Mike Conley now faces with the back fractures that have sidelined the Grizzlies guard.
Because alongside Fizdale and Conley with the Grizzlies stands Keith Smart, the former Miami Heat assistant. And the fact that Smart is still standing on an NBA bench is one of the most heartening developments of this or any other season.
It was just a year ago when Smart, working at the time alongside Fizdale and Spoelstra on the Heat bench, no longer was on the Heat bench, diagnosed with Dermatofibrosarcoma Protuberans (DFSP), a rare skin cancer lodged in his left jaw.
Surgery and radiation therapy followed. And prayers. From within his own family, from within the Heat's family. Smart twice visited with the team when the Heat visited the Bay Area, with Smart receiving his treatment in the San Francisco area, where his family is based.
And now? And now there is Smart, standing alongside Fizdale on the Grizzlies bench, after Fizdale left the Heat in May to become Memphis' coach, insisting his friend and mentor be alongside. No, there was no Smart tribute last Saturday at AmericanAirlines Arena as there was for Fizdale, with Smart joining the Heat after the Big Three championship era. But save for some discoloration on his cheek, Smart looks much like he did on the Heat bench before his sudden, no-longer-life-threatening scare.
"Everything is good," Smart, 52, said. "I had my last checkup in May and I won't do it again for another six months. I'll go back, but right now everything is cancer free and starting to get my weight back and also getting my strength back."
Even with the Grizzlies' season series with the Heat complete after the two-game split, Smart may yet find himself back in South Florida, where he had his initial surgery.
"They'll make a decision if I want to remove the remaining fat that they put in," Smart said of the reconstruction of the skin covering his jaw. "But the surgeon said, 'If I was you, I probably would leave it like that because it's actually smoothing out pretty well.' "
Issues remain, but none like the ones that created such deep concern a year ago.
"I still have some moments where my taste buds will go out," he said. "I don't have the metallic taste anymore. But it's just that my taste buds kind of shut off and that's going to last anywhere from six months to a year. So if I eat a salad, for example, and I chew on that for several bites, I don't taste it anymore. So I'll have that from time to time. Or I'll have a craving to go out and have a steak somewhere, and if I chew for multiple bites for a period of time and I'll have to remove it from my mouth."
But he's eating, gaining back much of the 40 pounds he lost during the most difficult days.
"I mean, he looks better now," Spoelstra said. "That was such a devastating thing to happen last year, just out of nowhere. It makes you check everything into perspective, someone right in his prime, healthy, active, and it shows you that it can happen to anybody at any time."
Spoelstra has found himself texting as often with Smart as with Fizdale. But he also understood what it meant for Smart to leave with Fizdale, to assist the coach who had been an assistant on Smart's Golden State Warriors staff.
Smart said that leaves him as indebted to the Heat almost as much for the lengths Spoelstra and Heat President Pat Riley went during last season's ordeal.
"Spo and the Heat and Coach Riley were all great," Smart said. "They said, 'It's totally up to you. If you want to go, you go. If not, you can stay here with us.' Obviously I've been with Fizz and known him for a long, long time. When he worked for me, he was a younger coach under me, And now I'm helping him out."
