LogGrad98
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This touches on the core of the problem, IMO. I think Corbin just doesn't have the brain for it. So where did Corbin learn to set up his rotations? From Sloan of course. Sloan was criticized, imo fairly at times and unfairly at others, for sticking to his plan down to the minute. If Stockton was supposed to come out of the game at the 8 minute mark of the 1st quarter then by God he came out. He could have gone 10-10, with 28 points and 15 assists in that 8 minutes and had the first dunk of his career as he seemed to be flying over everyone's heads, but he would still sit the last 4 minutes of the first quarter. Corbin learned this. The part Corbin is missing, is that Sloan knew what his team, and the individual players, needed, at any given point in time.
Sloan generally did the right thing, even with his tightly controlled rotations, and made adjustments that made sense and didn't make adjustments when they didn't make sense. Sloan understood the game on a different level, boiled it down to its simplest components, and ran a simple but extremely effective system. He knew when and how to tweak and what that tweak would generally do in the course of the game. Why didn't he vary from his sub patterns much? Because by and large they were effective and the right thing to do.
I think Corbin is a step behind. He doesn't have the mental horse-power or deep understanding of the game or his players to plan at the level Sloan did. So he sets his rotations and holds to them whether it makes sense or not, never really understanding why, just knowing that was the way the great one did it, so it has to be right.
It is a lot like a certain family that likes to have a wonderful baked ham at thanksgiving. One year a husband who was newly married into the family observed the women preparing this wonderful family tradition. They prepared the ham lovingly, cutting beautiful hash-marks into the surface and rubbing it down with a delicious brown-sugar glaze, then pinning circles of pineapple and cloves all over. It was gorgeous and he found himself so very excited to try this family tradition himself. Then his new mother-in-law pulled out a wicked-looking knife and unceremoniously lopped 3 inches of each end of the ham. He was confused. It was so wonderfully prepared he couldn't understand why she would do that. So he asked, "Say, why do you chop off the ends of the ham?" The mother-in-law looked irritated. "This is a very old family recipe, it was handed down by my grandmother to my mother, to me, and I will be handing it down to my daughter, your wife." He could tell he had struck and nerve and so he pulled his wife aside. "Honey, can you tell me why you cut off the ends of the ham? It seems like such a waste." She shrugged. "My great-grand-mother cooked it that way, and it is family tradition. It will be delicious, you will see." He frowned, "Yes, but there is so much less to go around." She smiled, and patted him on the shoulder "listen dear, my great-grand-mother doesn't have very many more thanksgivings with us. We don't want to upset her or anything. She is in the other room and I don't want her to overhear this conversation. It is our family tradition and I promise you it will be wonderful." He found a weak smile and put it on his face. "Alright dear, you're right." And he went into the living room. The great-grand-mother was rocking quietly in her chair, a hand-knitted shawl across her lap, a light, carefree smile on her face. He went to her. "Grandmother, can I ask you a question?" She smiled at him and in her wobbly, sweet voice answered "of course dear." He said, "I was watching them prepare the ham. It looks like a wonderful recipe and I am very excited to try it." She beamed "why thank you. We have been making that ham for years now, it is a family favorite." He smiled, "yes I can see that. My question is, I watched them cut off the ends of the ham and wondered what that does to help with the recipe." She looked at him blankly, patted his knee, and said "oh my, dear, it does nothing for the recipe. I had to do that years ago because the hams wouldn't fit in our tiny stove."
So here is Corbin, cooking a ham with a recipe he doesn't understand and unwilling to deviate from the path of the master, all along showing he really has no clue why it is done the way it is done.
