New coach, new drip: Karl Smesko keeping things light in Dream season

“You got some new drip today, huh, coach?” the reporter asked.

“Is this drip? I thought something was falling out,” Smesko quipped.

Meet Big Wheeze.

“It’s cool. Big Wheeze is different, but we accept him,” Dream guard Allisha Gray joked. “All around, he’s a great person and a great coach. His jokes — he has dad jokes — they’re funny to me, but I’m goofy, so I laugh at anything.

“Big Wheeze is cool people.”

Smesko, 54, is also a good coach, jumping to the WNBA this season after 22 seasons at Florida Gulf Coast, where he compiled an impressive record of 611-110. He’s made the adjustment from college to the pros, and he’s taking it all one day at a time.

“I just think it’s kind of a different timetable,” Smesko said. “I think there’s a lot of new coaches in the league this year, and we’re all trying to install different systems. And I just think for all of us, that requires some patience. You’d like to have everything in and run smoothly in two weeks, but in truth, that’s probably not realistic.”

Smesko, a native of Bath, Ohio, has implemented a system that has an emphasis on 3-point shooting while also stressing to players to take the best available shot.

After Smesko’s hiring, questions rose about how his system would translate to the WNBA. So far, Smesko’s empowerment of the 11 players on the roster has created an environment of belief and confidence.

“It’s been great, and I’ve learned a lot,“ Dream guard Maya Caldwell said. ”He’s thrown a lot of new terminology at us. His style of play is very different from what most of us have seen, but at the same time — it’s, I don’t know how to explain — it’s also very simple.

“It’s a lot, but it’s also very simple. So it’s new. We were a little uncomfortable at first, but not in a bad way. Again, it’s new. So we’re starting to learn the ropes of this style of play, and it’s coming together. So I like it.”

Early success

Entering Friday’s game, the Dream ranked third in the WNBA with a 5-2 record, behind only the Lynx and Liberty, who are undefeated. The Dream have won its past four games, including a 17-point comeback victory over the Storm on May 30 in Seattle.

Through seven games, the Dream rank in the top five in points per game, rebounds per game, assists per game, blocks per game and 3-pointers made.

Gray has had one of the best starts to a season, averaging a career-best 21.4 points and 4.6 assists per game. The two-time All-Star has seen an uptick in 3-point shooting efficiency (43.5%), even with a higher volume of shot attempts per game (6.6).

Rhyne Howard, Gray’s running mate, has stayed the course despite seeing a downturn in her own 3-point shooting. Smesko will be the first to admit that he and his staff have asked a lot of Howard in point guard Jordin Canada’s absence, and it may have played a role in her shooting slump.

But Howard posted a breakout game in the Dream’s win over the Storm, scoring 33 points.

On top of that, the Dream have developed one of the league’s more efficient reserve units.

While the stats provide some affirmation that the new system is trending in the right direction, Smesko refuses to get carried away by the small sample size.

“I think that’s probably more important from, like, a player’s perspective,” Smesko told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a phone interview. “They’re really trying to implement what we’re talking about, and I think it helps when they see some early-season success, or can see when it’s being done well, that it will be successful.

“But, I don’t think you can get carried away just because you had a good start, or it would have been the other way, I still would 100% believe we’re going to be very good once we get everything figured out. So, a small sample size, whether positive or negative, we try not to put too much into.”

It helps far more that the players have bought into what Smesko and his staff want to implement.

Throughout practices, nary an eye leaves Smesko whenever he goes over a concept or stops a scheme to encourage players to attack it from a different point of view.

“I think he’s very honest with people,” Dream assistant Chelsea Lyles said. “You can tell he’s very authentic, and he’ll have those tough conversations with you. I think they’re learning that it comes from a good place. Like, he doesn’t lie. He doesn’t manipulate. He’s just very straightforward. And then what he always knows how to do is to turn on a little joke. Like, he’ll tell Lish (Allisha Gray), ‘You like this play?’ She’s like, ‘Yeah.’ Then he’ll say, ‘Yeah, cuz you like any play I run for you.’ Like, just funny stuff like that.”

Lyles has a long history with Smesko after he recruited her to play at Florida Gulf Coast in 2008. She became a student assistant before fully joining Smesko’s staff as an assistant in 2011. She became the associate head coach of FGCU’s women’s basketball program in 2019 before briefly moving to the big chair when Smesko departed for the WNBA.

“He’s very honest, and he uses that very honest approach to make jokes that are true,” she said. “Like, if you watch any good comedian, they usually say stuff that’s true and that you can relate to. So he knows how to relate to people, and he knows how to get the best out of them by challenging them. But he doesn’t do it in a demeaning way.”

‘He’s here to win’

Smesko, who is an avid Wordle follower and maybe not-so-secret lover of 1980s heavy metal, is not afraid to put himself out there to find ways to engage with his players, especially when the age gap spans decades.

The son of a teacher, Smesko has leaned on his master’s degree in education to tailor his coaching style to his players.

“Over the years, (his style) changed,” Lyles said. “It’s changed a lot. So he tries to relate stuff to things that they can relate to. Whether it’s a TikTok that has something to do with our team because it helps register with them. Even in college, he would call something — I think, like there was something like Bing Bong on TikTok that was huge, and so that was one of our play calls. And they knew it like that, just because it registered. So, he’s just constantly trying to figure out, how can players learn this concept or this play quickly?”

And his players will eat it up.

“Karl is actually hilarious,” Caldwell said. “He kind of has a sense of dry humor. So sometimes, I don’t know if I’m allowed to laugh or not.

“Like he kind of practices in the corners, chuckling, nothing too serious. But he’s a great person. He clearly wants the best for everybody on this team. He’s here to win. We all are.”

“They call him ‘Big Wheeze,’” Lyles said. ”That’s what the players call him. So we translate that to big wheeze, big keys, and that’s like in our scouting report. So something like that, that rhymes, that helps them click.”

But that’s just who Smesko is.

“I think I’ve been much more comfortable after coaching for 10, 12 years, and I stopped worrying about trying to be like other coaches I admired, and I just was really comfortable being my own personality,” Smesko said. “So, I don’t know. I’m sure there’s plenty of coaches that humor, and I don’t. I try to be emotional when I coach. I try to just help players see what could help them and get them to a better place.”