I read that yesterday. IMO, as what Padrino pointed out, it just points to the obvious and what many of us have said for awhile now.
One of the biggest differences between Smart and Pop, and the article says it, is that Pop has clear, defined roles, and makes those roles clear before even signing a player. His entire philosophy is broken down into roles, small pieces of an equation if you will, and he finds players to fit those roles. He finds players who are happy to put the team first. If you don't fall in line, you see the bench. Pop's equation doesn't really change from season to season, although he might tweak it based on personnel, while Smart's equation changes every 30 mins. There is no constant on this team. One thing which allows Pop to what he does however are his four rings. Smart has nowhere near the pedigree to get players to buy into that.
But going back to the difference between the two, Smart changes our players' roles from game to game, even half to half. While Pop finds defensive minded role players and specialists to fill roles, Smart tries to put a bunch of offensive gunners out there and gives them all the green light. While Pop has clear defined roles, and a somewhat normal sub pattern, and will sit a player if they're not doing what is asked, Smart is more concerned with getting the 10-12th men minutes, and playing time appears to have little to do with performance and more with has everyone gotten a chance to play tonight. If our players have a role going into a game, it changes mid-game in order to get Jimmer/Outlaw/Brooks/Cisco more minutes.
There's just no rhyme or reason to what Smart does. We don't have roles and we don't have a system to buy into. Players have played very well some night and not so well other night, yet the minute distribution never seems to add up to performance. We've seen players playing horribly and getting extended run while keeping the hotter player on the bench. We see lineups which change from game to game and half to half. We see no set hierarchy within our offense and an increasing problem of our PG's, all three, looking more for their own than actually running an offense. We see iso's run for non-scorers out of timeouts every game. We see more emphasis on getting the 10th man shots and a rhythm than the 2nd or 3rd man. We hear defense is important, then we see Jimmer/Brooks/MT/Outlaw lineups. We see Smart changing sub patterns every single game so players don't know when they're coming in or out or who they'll be playing alongside. I could go on but I'm just tired of regurgitating all this.
Yes the roster doesn't fit, but Smart's use of the roster we have shows an asinine philosophy.
