Craig Smith

Craig Smith is a former professional basketball player. Craig Smith has nine years of professional basketball experience at several levels, including in the NBA. Craig played four years of college basketball with the Boston College Eagles before entering the NBA.

Smith began his professional career after being selected in the 2006 NBA draft by the Minnesota Timberwolves. He played club basketball in Europe from 2012 to 2015.

Childhood, Family, and Education

Craig Smith was born in the city of Inglewood, California, on November 10, 1983.

Craig Sr. and Linda Christian, both California natives, are his parents. Linda, his mother, reared him as a single mother.

Despite the fact that Smith was born in Inglewood, he spent the majority of his youth and went to school in Los Angeles.

Linda, his mother, was a well-educated woman who worked at UCLA Medical Center as an administrative assistant.

His mother was well-off, therefore he did not have a difficult childhood.

Of course, he spent most of his time grasping school courses, but his mother instilled in him a desire for something else from the time he was a toddler.

When Craig was three years old, Linda introduced him to basketball. His enthusiasm for the sport has only grown since then.

His mother was a major NBA fan, and her favorites included Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Walt Frazier, Jerry West, and others.

Craig showed a knack for basketball as a kid, despite being clumsy and obese.

In the surrounding park, he spent many of his vacations playing basketball with her mother and neighbors.

When he was around six years old, he began participating in organized basketball events.

Craig was 10 years old when he was playing with teens and the grown-up man who held so much potential. However, he battled a lot because he was overweight at the time.

After graduating from Fairfax High School in 2000, Smith enrolled in Boston College in Massachusetts in 2002.

He had to complete a year of classes at the Worcester Academy in Massachusetts since his grades were not adequate.

Smith earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Boston College in 2006.

Net Worth and Earnings

Craig Smith has a net worth of between $1 million and $5 million.

After signing a multi-year contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2006, he began his professional career. For his debut season, the club paid him roughly $413,000.

He returned to the Timberwolves for two more seasons, earning a total of just over $3 million from the team. After that, he made another $4.8 million while playing for the Los Angeles Clippers until 2011.

Similarly, the Portland Trail Blazers offered him approximately $1 million for the 2011-12 season. Finally, he has a net worth of around $10 million as a result of his NBA career.

Craig has also played in some overseas leagues and NBA minor leagues, both of which pay well.

Craig has also worked in a variety of fields since his retirement, and he currently enjoys a comfortable lifestyle.

He works as a writer and blogger in addition to coaching at Crossroads School in California, which pays handsomely.

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Facts of Craig Smith

Basketball Career

Career in High School

Craig attended two distinct high schools, Fairfax High School and Worcester Academy, before enrolling in college.

He did, however, play high school basketball for Fairfax School after joining Worcester as a post-graduate student.

He averaged 20.0 points and 10.0 rebounds per game for them in Massachusetts during the 2001-02 season.

Because he was taller than his teammates, Smith primarily played as a power forward and center with Fairfax. Harvey Kitani, his school’s head coach, thought Craig had a lot of enthusiasm for the game but lacked the essential speed.

His high school stats, on the other hand, were remarkable. He averaged 23.4 points and 11.0 rebounds per game during his final season.

Career in College

At the end of high school, Craig had gotten scholarship offers from a number of universities, including Oregon State. They canceled it, citing his health condition and poor academic performance as reasons.

In 2002, he enrolled at Boston College in Massachusetts. Smith was a standout from the start of his college career, averaging 19.9 points and 7.9 points per game in his rookie season.

Throughout the next three seasons, his performance remained consistent. During that time, he also refined his defensive game and emerged as one of the top rebounders in college.

Craig concluded his senior season averaging 17.6 points and 9.4 rebounds per game. When he graduated in 2006, he was Boston College’s second-highest scorer with 2349 points, trailing only Troy Bell.

A Professional Life

Smith was the 36th pick in the second round of the 2006 NBA draft by the Minnesota Timberwolves. As a result, on August 30, 2006, he signed a contract with them.

The Timberwolves didn’t give him many chances at first, but he ended up playing in every game of the season.

Smith played full time in the final five games of the season, averaging 12.0 points and 10.2 rebounds per game.

Craig, on the other hand, had a rookie season where he averaged 7.4 points and 5.1 rebounds per game. In 2007, he was named to the NBA All-Rookie Second Team for his efforts that season.

He then spent two more seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves before retiring in 2009. He improved his scoring, but his general game remained largely unchanged from the previous season.

On July 20, 2009, the team traded him to the Los Angeles Clippers.

Finally, he spent the 2011-12 season with the Portland Trail Blazers. He then went on to further his professional career in another country.

Craig joined Hapoel Jerusalem on August 11, 2012, and spent one season in the Israeli Basketball Premier League. He briefly played in the NBL China for the Hong Kong Bulls in 2013.

Aside from that, he returned to the court on several occasions after taking a sabbatical. In 2013, he was a member of Team CitiTeam Blazers, which competed in The Basketball Tournament.

Since 2019, Smith has also participated in various BIG3 editions.

Personal Life

Craig Smith is a dashing young man with a seductive demeanor and a captivating personality.

Because of these characteristics, the player has always drawn a lot of attention from fans since his early basketball days.

Several of his female fans have approached him with marriage proposals on numerous occasions. However, in order to focus on his job, the footballer did not want to continue in a relationship at the moment.

In 2008, however, there was speculation that Craig was dating Claudia Cirillo. He used to hang out with her because she was his childhood best friend.

They hadn’t spoken in years until he ran into her at a party while still playing for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Following that, the media assumed that they had started dating, but things quickly calmed down.

However, he has no plans to marry now that he has taken a vacation from league games. So, after all these years, he is most likely still unmarried.

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Height and Weight

Craig Smith was overweight as a child, which limited him greatly.

Due to his stocky build, he even missed a number of opportunities.

While still in high school, he stood over 6 feet tall and weighed 272 pounds.

During his college years, though, he worked out and dropped weight.

He quickly lost weight, dropping to 260 pounds, which gave him confidence.

He claims that he had always desired to play basketball and that in order to do so, he had to work hard to keep his body in good shape.

Smith is currently 2.01 meters (6 feet 7 inches) tall and weighs approximately 265 pounds (120 kg).

The player also has black hair and black eyes.