The family of the late NBA player, assistant Derek Smith treats every day like Father’s Day

Derek Smith taught his son that great basketball players never take a play off. He taught him that no amount of money, fame or possessions could ever mean more than family.

And in the years following Derek Smith’s death, at 34, of an undetected heart defect, Nolan Smith, then 8, developed an expertise that no one wants: How to go on without a father who reached his massive arms up to heaven the day his children were born and rearranged the universe with them at its center.

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In so many ways, Nolan and Sydney Smith have followed in their father’s footsteps, learning from their mother, Monica, and Derek’s former NBA teammates and proteges (Johnny Dawkins and Juwan Howard chief among them) the type of man he was and the values he would have wanted at their core.

Sydney, now 25, graduated from Louisville, where a gym is named for her father, who helped lead the Cardinals to the 1980 NCAA championship.

Nolan chose Duke to be closer to “Uncle Johnny” — then-associate head coach Johnny Dawkins — a former teammate of Derek’s on the Philadelphia 76ers. Like his dad, Nolan helped lead his school to an NCAA championship, in 2010. On Thursday, he’s expected to follow his father once again when his name is called in the NBA draft.

But before drawing his first NBA paycheck, Nolan and his sister are doing something to give their loss meaning, establishing a foundation to help children who have lost a loved one. Through the Sydney & Nolan Smith Foundation, they’ll personally mentor a handful of boys and girls each year while trying to help a larger group through camps and other events. They’ll help with college scholarships, as well, and provide retreats and counseling for grieving single parents.

“We started talking about it over Christmas break and knew very quickly that it was the perfect thing to do,” Nolan said during an interview at the family’s home in Upper Marlboro. “What I needed [after his father’s death] was just love and support. A lot of that, I got from my sister and my mom. But I also got a lot of support from people that knew my dad.”

One of six children reared by a single mother in rural Georgia, Derek Smith told Monica soon after they married following a four-year courtship that he was going to be the best father ever. And he followed through, just as he had on the basketball court, where he earned a reputation as a fierce, unrelenting defender.

When Sydney was born, Derek got a license plate that read, “ILVUSYD.”

And when Nolan was a toddler, he turned down a lucrative contract extension from the Boston Celtics and retired after nine NBA seasons, explaining that he wanted to be sure, given that he had only one good knee left, that he’d able to run and play with Nolan as he grew up.

Three years later, Washington Bullets Coach Jim Lynam coaxed Derek back to the league as an assistant coach by promising he could bring Nolan to every practice, training camp, home game and trip he wanted.

Overnight, 6-year-old Nolan became the Bullets’ 13th man. He showed up for practice in full gear, got his ankles taped by the trainer, did drills with Howard and Chris Webber and was a ball boy at home games, with his big sister and mother looking on from the stands.