At halftime of Bucks-Celtics, ESPN’s Malika Andrews interviewed Marcus Smart and the Celtics starting point guard had a chance to be a champion for Be The Match, an organization helping sickle cell patients find donors.
From his work with the foundation, Smart met Justice Brooks, a 19-year-old suffering from the disease. The two have become friends while Brooks waits for a match.
“I just felt a lot of love from Marcus, he really embraces me,” Justice told Blavity as he looks back on that special night. “So yeah, that’s my brother.”
As Smart mentioned at halftime, “according to Be The Match, a Black patient only has a 29% chance of finding a matching donor while a white individual has a 79% chance.”
Back in October, Smart won the league’s NBA Cares Community Assist Award for his “ongoing support for pediatric cancer patients and commitment to creating access to opportunity for inner-city athletes.”
“It stems from losing my mom, my brother, a couple of my aunts and uncles from cancer when I was growing up,” Smart said of his passion to support pediatric cancer patients. “I wish I had somebody to come in and take as much interest in helping me or helping my family in ways that we couldn’t even imagine, such as giving us hope, making us feel better, putting a smile on our faces, things like that. I think somebody that people look up to such as an NBA player, any type of athlete, entertainer, or any type of person that they idolize, for them to be able to come and show their support, means more than anything in the world.”
To join Marcus in his continued support for kids dealing with cancer and cancer-related diseases and become a bone marrow donor, please click here to be added to Be The Match’s registry. Happy holidays, everybody.
