oh dear lord...
basketball is not rocket science. its a game that's been won in a variety of ways across its brief history, but there is not so much deviation between the various styles of play that a newbie head coach like keith smart can attempt to flip the script on young players who already understand that role definition is the easiest way to breed consistency. there is plenty of room for creativity, as long as it does not come at the expense of wins. this is what rick adelman understood so well as former coach of the sacramento kings. he ran a creative offensive system that maximized his players' talents and sold each of them on a specific, if
occasionally flexible role. his team was consistent. they built chemistry. they won...
but what keith smart is talking about is basketball bedlam. it's chaos manifest on the court. telling his entire team, 1-12, that they will each go without a set role is, quite possibly, the most desperate, most asinine move i've ever heard from an nba head coach. and the season has not even begun yet. if he feels like he needs "to see how they develop and see what it is that they can do to help our team," if he doesn't know what he has in players like cousins, evans, thornton, thomas, thompson, etc., then he's just not equipped to coach this team. he's not. simple. period. end of story. if you're seriously telling tyreke evans that he may, situationally, occupy the center position this season, you've got very little acumen as a head coach of a professional basketball team. i don't care if it was said hypothetically or to make a point. this is the kinda **** that causes GM's across the league to intervene on behalf of the good of their teams. nba head coaches get canned for less than this level of idiocy. but not keith smart. not on this team. he'll probably get extended for another year for these comments...
even smart's great mentor, don nelson, understood the importance of true centers, of defined roles. he referred to the warriors' recent acquisition of andrew bogut as an absolute coup, cuz you just don't trade a talented 7-footer for a talented guard. and you don't play small when you've got that kinda size on your side. its why nelson was always frustrated with andris biedrins, because he needed biedrins to play bigger than he does, on both sides of the ball. though the SF position remains an amorphous notion for the kings, with a PF/C rotation of cousins/thompson/robinson, there is absolutely NO reason that they should be playing small or out-of-position this season, except in the rare match-up advantage. yet i just know that keith smart will use this tremendously important year in the kings' development to experiment with lineups that will not result in consistency, chemistry, or wins. it depresses me...
