Keith Smart Bashing

In response to Spreefor3!!!'s article, "What the Hell is Keith Smart Doing?"

I was going to post a reply, but decided it would be too long and I'll go in depth at my epic frustrations with our head coach.

I broke it up into sections of coaching, in no particular order, and identified problems and possible solutions. If I can do this, you'd think a head coach in the National Basketball Association wouldn't have a problem doing it, either.

Defense

Defensively, we keep getting burned game after game, practically possession after possession, on backdoor cuts. How hard can it possibly be to fix something so idiotic like that? A couple hours of emphasis in practice should be enough to plug the leak. I'm impressed with our defense so far this year, and can't complain about the improvement from last year, but this failure is simply glaring and can help us out too much to be ignored. Smart's getting them to hustle on this end, but he forgot to teach them how to hustle, and how to use their energy efficiently and intelligently.

Offense

Offensively, it has been a complete embarrassment. I'm fine with his decision to terminate the Run & Gun style of play, and run ordinary half-court sets, but what the hell are they "running" out there. The most movement I've seen all season on the offensive end has been 3 players weaving out beyond the arc waiting for someone to make a decisive move. That move would come with the shot clock winding down and a usually difficult, contested jump shot. More often than not, we lazily trot upcourt, make one or two passes, then isolate a certain player and everyone else clears out and stands around. Here lies an even bigger dilemma than lack of movement. Isolations were a powerful element in Don Nelson's system. He was brilliant at exploiting mismatches, setting up players in terrific position to go one on one. It's definitely not the prettiest and most efficient offense available, but it can and has worked. However, I'd like to know who came up with the idea to let Dorell Wright isolate against someone like Rudy Gay. Same goes for everyone on the roster aside from Curry and Ellis. These guys simply are not players who specialize in creating for themselves. Then Keith Smart has them create for themselves against more talented players. The only iso's the Warriors should utilize are with Ellis and Curry, and and then Lee or Biedrins if they're rolling from the post. (By the way, props to Andris for his monstrous effort, it was a beauty.) Basically, our "flex motion offense" has been anything but that. Half the time, we leave our best players (Curry and Ellis) standing around while Rodney Carney's running a pick and roll with Vlad Rad, which is obviously unacceptable and drives us Warrior fans crazy. Our offense this year has been simply atrocious. Defense wins championships, but you can't win if you can't put the ball in the bucket. Smart needs to get smart or get out.

Rotation

We all (should) know Smart's the worst coach at putting in the right guys at the right times. I'm tired of seeing him leaving out Ellis for all of the first quarter and the first few minutes of the second quarter. Monta constantly becomes fatigued and it shows in how his production significantly drops off in the second half and he's been unable to close out games. All out other starters also do not need to be playing 11 minutes in a quarter. He needs to start subbing players in at around the 5 or 4 minute mark of the first/third and Monta/Steph need to get their breathers with 1 or 2 minutes left, and then rest for the first minute or two of the next quarter. I'm not a fan of having Ellis and Curry both out of the game at the same time, but as we get healthier and deeper, it shouldn't be such a horrible problem for the 3 or 4 minutes they'll sit. Aside from that, I was bewildered when neither of them were in the game for almost half of the fourth quarter in a tight ball game! How stupid is Smart? Curry sat out the second half of the third quarter due to foul trouble, and I thought he would play the entire fourth, for sure at least 9 or 10 minutes. Furthermore, when I saw him pulled after a short few minutes of action and only reinserted with two and a half minutes to go, I began fuming. All hope was pretty much lost by then, Ellis was fatigued from over-abuse in the first half, and Curry had no hope of getting in a rhythm while sitting and watching on the bench.

I probably left out a few sections of Keith Smart's futility (his horrible use of timeouts, for one), but the point was clear. If we want any hope of making the playoffs, Smart needs to get his head straight or a change must be made. Before the season started, I listed a number of player transactions I thought would improve the ball club. I stand by those ideas/thoughts (especially trading Ellis while his stock is high, 'cause there ain't no way he and Curry can play together and expect to raise Lacob's/Guber's promised banners in the future), but a great coach is the most necessary plug to vault this team to new levels. Keith Smart appears to not be that coach (to say the least).