How Karl Smesko's coaching philosophy has enabled Atlanta Dream's fast start
Seven new head coaches joined the WNBA this season, each looking to make an immediate impact. But among them, arguably none has been more successful than the Atlanta Dream's Karl Smesko.
The Dream currently sit third in the league after an 8–3 start, trailing only the defending champion New York Liberty (9–1) and last year's runner-up the Minnesota Lynx (10–1).
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On the latest episode of 'No Offseason,' Zena Keita, Ben Pickman and Sabreena Merchant broke down Smesko's coaching style and philosophy, discussing why the 54-year-old has been able to hit the ground running in Atlanta.
Keita: We're seeing a lot of these new head coaches trying to set up their foundations, and some teams are doing it exceptionally well with the new faces that they've integrated into those new foundations. Let's start at the top of the tier with someone whose team is largely beating expectations this year, and I put emphasis on 'large' because their team is big, and that is Karl Smesko and the Atlanta Dream. Watching this team, they're relentless. The number of ways they can score and the number of ways they can make you feel like you have no room to play in the halfcourt is tremendous. Ben, can you tell us a little bit about Smesko's coaching style and his philosophy?
Pickman: It's been interesting because Sabreena and I talked to Karl on the day he was hired as the Atlanta Dream head coach, and we wrote a big story about that decision, and then obviously followed up with them in the weeks and months since. Karl Smesko came from Florida Gulf Coast University, a small college where he developed this reputation as an offensive mastermind. They prioritized 3-point shots, often catch-and-shoot 3s or layups. It was a really innovative offense, and they were top of the country in 3-point rate all the time. He was also a winner, and entering this past college season, he boasted the third-highest winning percentage among active college coaches behind just (UConn's) Geno Auriemma and (LSU's) Kim Mulkey. Over the last decade, it was only Auriemma, Mulkey and (South Carolina's) Dawn Staley who had more 30-win seasons than Smesko. So from a basketball perspective, it was all about this outside-the-box thinking and offensive innovation.
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But one of the things that sticks out is that he talks about being a teacher first. That's really important to how he communicates and how the Atlanta Dream are building. He's always seemingly asking follow-up questions, and he talks a lot about habit-building. One of the things that struck me when I went down to Atlanta is that he doesn't call his practice plans 'practice plans,' he calls them 'progress plans.' That was something that goes back to his time in college, where the thinking was, 'We have a progress schedule, not a practice schedule.' From a college context, the way he explained it to me was, it's a way to try to get people to understand that we're not just showing up at practice at 10 a.m. to get shots up and work out, we're actually building towards something.
Those are some of the things that are really important for him, there is a big emphasis on communication and asking a lot of questions. At his core, and he said this when he got hired and it's still true today, they are trying to leverage the strengths of their best players and put them in a position to succeed. Every coach would say that, but it is something we have seen with him because they're not playing exactly the way he did in college. They have two centers in Brittney Griner and Brionna Jones, and they didn't have that at FGCU, so it is a little bit different. But again, that shows his adaptability and wanting to be a teacher first in how he communicates.
Keita: What I love about Karl Smesko as a coach, and what you're referring to, Ben, is that it's an open dialogue with him with the way he asks those follow-up questions. You've heard on the broadcast that covers the Dream about how he's very much like a dad, and he has his dad jokes …
Pickman: You want a good one? You know how some people say, 'You're my ride or die.' Karl Smesko often says to Rhyne Howard, 'You're my Rhyne or die,' which is a great example of that.
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Keita: Well there you go. Sabreena, having a head coach that has that endearing quality to him already disarms folks, doesn't it? And it already makes them feel a little bit more comfortable to show up as their true selves. When you're looking at this team right now, Allisha Gray was the Eastern Conference Player of the Week, and she's been the Eastern Conference Player of the Month as well. There have been unbelievable performances coming from her, and she's a Most Improved Player candidate for sure. Rhyne Howard is also doing great in her fourth year. But it's really the way that he's made all of these players work together with a lot of new faces that's impressive, isn't it?
You even consider the fact that Jordin Canada is coming into this mix late from her injury. And when you look at their most recent game against Indiana, when Canada came in she was not just distributing, but she was going to the rack as well. It feels as if Karl Smesko has found ways to get all of these different things out of this team, where there's a light shining on individual attributes, but they're also jelling so well as a collective. What are you seeing out there, and why do you think Smesko has been able to get all of the best elements out of his players, while also getting them on the same page?
Merchant: Firstly, not to discount what Karl Smesko is doing in Atlanta, but there was a lot of low-hanging fruit on the offensive end. This was a team that had the worst offense in the WNBA last year, averaging 96.6 points per 100 possessions, and they're about 10 points better than that this season. Rhyne Howard is not shooting the ball all that much better than she did last year, but you've got Brionna Jones who's hyper-efficient inside, Allisha Gray is shooting better, and the shots they're getting make so much more sense than the long 2 parade that existed with the Dream the last couple of years. So that's first and foremost. You hire an offensive mastermind because you think that there is untapped potential with your players, and I completely agree with that. The Dream was way too talented to be scoring the ball as poorly as they were the last two seasons, so that just seemed like the obvious source of improvement. But for it to have happened so quickly just validates everything we thought about Karl Smesko.
I must say Ben hit on it perfectly with the personality part of it. We had talked about his 'ATL Lytics' shirt, and I was talking to Brionna Jones about how all the players got one and whether she had worn hers, to which she said, 'Definitely not.' But she also said, 'Smesko's not like any coach that I've ever had.' And you can't deny that everything he's saying makes sense, and there is logic to everything that he is preaching to them. So when you have the track record of what Karl Smesko brings from FGCU, when you have the initial spate of success that they've had to start the season, and when everybody is getting to play as their best self within the system, it's easy to buy in because things look like they're working. And achieving that initial success helps a lot in that particular aspect. Also, Smesko keeping Brandi Poole as one of his lead assistants, who's been in the WNBA for a very long time, just helps to translate things because he comes from college basketball and she's been in the WNBA for a while. So that makes a lot of sense because it just helps give the staff a little bit more credibility. When I saw the Dream in Los Angeles, their shoot around was being run by Poole, so that sharing of responsibilities and having a voice that people are maybe a little bit more familiar with helps in building a culture and adapting to the WNBA this quickly.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Atlanta Dream, WNBA, No Offseason Podcast
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