![\"Craig](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-72447075-e1756327564435.jpg\")
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LOS ANGELES – NOVEMBER 07: Craig Smith #5 of the Minnesota Timberwolves reacts to a call in the second quarter against the Los Angeles Lakers on November 7, 2006 at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and\/or using this Photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Lisa Blumenfeld\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
After being drafted 36th overall by the Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> in the 2006 NBA Draft<\/a> out of Boston College, power forward Craig Smith would go on to play six seasons in the NBA. Despite being undersized for his position, and lacking the high-volume and\/or high efficiency three-point shot that would now be mandatory in a young forward prospect<\/a>, he was able to put together a solid career for several seasons, largely on account of his physicality.<\/p>\n Because of how strong he was, Smith earned the nickname \u201cRhino\u201d throughout his playing career. And now that his playing career is over, Smith is hoping to do something else with that moniker.<\/p>\n As a part of a wider scope to help with local communities, Smith has opened a foundation \u2013 named the Taylored Rhino Foundation<\/a>, combining his nickname with the forename of his late brother \u2013 which has begun to sell merchandise, with the express intent to raise awareness over the abolishment of rhino poaching. The facility to do that is not yet on the website, but Smith has announced that it soon will be<\/a>.<\/p>\n https:\/\/tayloredrhinofoundation.org\/programsThe mission statement for the foundation of Craig \u201cRhino\u201d Smith, former NBA player and member of the Minnesota Timberwolves<\/p>\n Craig Smith, Rhino Fan<\/p>\n The foundation was founded in Smith\u2019s home state of California, and there is probably not a lot of rhino poaching that takes place in California. Nevertheless, no doubt catalyzed by the nickname from his playing days, Smith\u2019s wide-ranging aims for his foundation will seemingly include something rhino-related.<\/p>\n Beyond the poaching strand, Smith\u2019s foundation will run youth programs and events in California, as well as offer a sponsorship program for children\u2019s literacy. Building off of his penchant for writing even during his playing career<\/a>, Smith himself has become a children\u2019s author, authoring two books to date: Craig and his Magic Basketball<\/a>, featuring a rhino in sunglasses, and Coloring With Craig<\/a>, which is exactly what it sounds like.<\/p>\n In addition to his foundation, books and anti-poaching position, Smith also hosts a weekly motivational podcast<\/a> named The Underdogs (or which at least used to be weekly), coaches at the high school level, works as a community ambassador<\/a> for the Los Angeles Clippers<\/a>, is available for hire as a motivational speaker and mentor, is working on a cartoon series and a feature film, and works as a director for Sootchy, a company\/app designed to reduce student debt<\/a>. He is one busy rhino.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Smith played for three teams in his six NBA<\/a> seasons, spending the majority of his time with the Timberwolves.\u00a0Upon leaving the Timberwolves in a trade package with Sebastian Telfair and Mark Madsen in exchange for Quentin Richardson \u2013 what a collection of guys that is to include in a single trade, by the way \u2013 Smith would play two more seasons with the Clippers, and tied on a sixth with the Portland Trail Blazers<\/a>,<\/p>\n In total, Smith appeared in 403 regular season games, almost all of which saw him come off the bench, where he carved out as niche as a seventh-man potent scorer. He finished his NBA career with averages of 7.6 points<\/a>, 3.9 rebounds and not much else per game, shooting 55.3% from the field through his footwork, strength, touch, movement, post play and ability to get to the rim on the roll, but not having a favorable defensive position to be able to cement a starting role.<\/p>\n Two years in Israel, two months in the G League and a part-season in China\u2019s second-tier league would follow, but Smith\u2019s playing career outside of the NBA was brief. It seems, with the breadth of his foundation\u2019s scope and the sheer number of options on his Linktree page<\/a>, that Smith had plenty of other things he wanted to do in life beyond playing basketball. If one of them sees him end the ghastly practice of rhino poaching, that would be great.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMark Deeks<\/a> I am continuously intrigued by the esoterica and minutiae of all the aspects of building a basketball team. I want to understand how to build the best basketball teams possible. No, I don\u2019t know why, either. More about Mark Deeks<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Clippers\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty LOS ANGELES – NOVEMBER 07: Craig Smith #5 of the Minnesota Timberwolves reacts to a call in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-100947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/rhino.png\")
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