 Smith was raised in a foster home, called Lydia Children's Home, as a ward of the state of Illinois due to neglect from his parents when he was five years old.Smith was selected out of Chicago's Martin Luther King High School (where he averaged 25.5 points and 14.5 rebounds per game in his senior year) by the San Antonio Spurs in the first round (29th overall) of the 1999 NBA Draft, and was immediately traded to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for the draft rights to Gordan Giriček and a second-round pick in the 2000 NBA Draft.However, in subsequent months he suffered numerous psychological concerns, and was released in February 2000 without ever playing a game for the Mavericks.