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http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20101224/SPORTS02/312240071

University of Louisville men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino exchanged polite greetings en route to his office while Samardo Samuels and another guy shot baskets on the practice court one summer day in 2009.

Chris Smith kept shooting, and he wasn’t exactly sure what to think after his new coach just walked past him. Pitino figured the guy was the new manager or a friend of Samuels’, until he reached his office and asked assistant coach Steve Masiello.

“I was like, ‘OK, I guess he doesn’t know I’m here; maybe he doesn’t know who I am,’ ” Smith recalled.

Fighting for recognition is nothing new to Smith. Many folks back home in Millstone, N.J., simply identify him as the brother of Denver Nuggets guard J. R. Smith, who went straight from high school to being the 18th pick in the 2004 NBA draft.

At U of L, however, Chris Smith is making a name for himself. He leads the Big East Conference in three-point percentage (.522) while averaging 8.5 points and 3.7 rebounds a game. The 6-foot-2 Manhattan transfer has smoothly transitioned into the Cardinals’ lineup as a junior this season, although a mention of his big brother is never far behind.

“It’s always going to be a shadow factor just because he’s a great player and a great athlete,” Smith said. “So it’s always going to be like, ‘Oh, your brother would do this, your brother would do that.’ I’ve been hearing it since I came out the womb, pretty much.”

Earl Smith had both his sons trailing him to games at an early age. Earl had played shooting guard and small forward in junior college and continued his career at Monmouth (N.J.) University. Although he involved his oldest sons in every sport, it wasn’t hard to recognize they got their love of basketball from Pops.

He says he had them running pick-and-rolls, give-and-goes and backdoor cuts when J.R. was 7 and Chris was 5 and they played on the same biddy league team, which Earl coached. He says those who focus only on J. R. are making a mistake.

“They’re two different people,” the father said. “They look past Chris, and that’s the wrong thing to do. That’s a big motivator for him to succeed.”

Chris thanks the constant comparisons for helping make him tougher mentally, and he credits the constant elbows thrown at him by his brother for his toughness physically.

“He used to throw the ball at me,” Chris said of their one-on-one backyard battles. “He’d beat me up in every aspect.”

To which his brother responded: “I had to. That’s my little brother. I always tried to make it harder on him no matter what we did. … Chris is tough as nails. He doesn’t let stuff bother him, and he’s not going to show it. He’s a very strong individual.”

Chris had to tap into that inner strength when he signed with Seton Hall out of St. Benedict’s Prep but had eligibility issues that kept him from enrolling immediately. By the time he was cleared during the summer of 2007, the landscape had changed at Seton Hall. He eventually enrolled at Manhattan in December 2007.

As a sophomore he led the Jaspers with 5.7 rebounds per game and averaged 13.4 points. But in the back of his mind, he still wanted to play in the Big East.

Chris thought about Villanova. But J.R. consulted Kentucky great Rex Chapman, who at the time was the Nuggets’ vice president of player personnel, and Chapman suggested Chris play for Pitino.

Smith left Manhattan for U ofL knowing that he’d have to walk on with no guarantee of any playing time.

“I had plenty of doubters,” he said. “Everybody told me, ‘You’re crazy, you’re not going to play there, you’re not really that good.’ I’d been hearing this for the longest.”

Pitino once had recruited J. R., but he didn’t know much more than Chris’ family ties before he arrived on campus. Pitino didn’t know what Smith looked like that first day in the gym because he purposely didn’t watch any film from his two years at Manhattan after viewing his stats.

“He had a negative turnover/assist ratio; he shot 38 percent from the field, 29 percent from the three,” Pitino said. “If you watched any film on him, you would really, really dislike him as a basketball player. And I didn’t want to do that, so we sort of just started fresh, started working on his game, and he’s become a very good basketball player.”

Smith admits that probably would not have happened if he hadn’t had to sit out last season under NCAA transfer rules.

“I look at the game like at different angles now,” he said. “I’m starting to see it from the angles that a coach would want to see it.”

Pitino likes what he sees so far. Smith’s 17 points off the bench helped rally the Cardinals past UNLV. He has started the past two games and posted 18 points and six rebounds in Wednesday’s 114-82 blowout of Western Kentucky.

“Since the day he came here until now, he’s really improved dramatically,” Pitino said. “He had a shot that was sort of a side spin. He’s improved his defense, he’s improved his passing, he’s improved his rebounding.”

J. R. Smith said if his brother continues to work hard, their old backyard battles could be renewed in front of an NBA audience in a couple of years.

“I wouldn’t be surprised at all,” big brother said. “He has the talent and potential to do it.”

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