The problem with Sloan is that he's a pretty darn good coach... If he sucked like 98% of persons who've tried his profession while he's been at it, it would be easy for us fans to see it and we'd at least get to biotch in unison.
InGameStrat - you can't say "Sloan becnched KK FOR NO REASON" and expect us to take you seriously. Sloan had a reason, which i've explained to you many times. At least say, he benched KK for the reason that sloan thought the best way to win and win as many games as possible was to stay with his best players and not take any game-practice-time away from them and give it to KK." That is why he did it and you can say that is a bad idea. But it wasn't for NO reason.
To bench a player and give him zero minutes for months, even when the outcome of the game is not in question, does warrant a reason after he had been developing and contributing. Reducing that player's minutes does not.
For the past two years, Millsap could've continued to develop with a few of his MPG allocated to the bigs, especially given that a legit big was a bigger need than a backup PF. Or those minutes could've come from benching Boozer or Okur until the next whistle when they dogged it. What is puzzling is that such an approach would seem like classic Sloan: sitting down a player when he's not defending. Sloan sometimes trimmed Okur's minutes when MO was not effective, but it didn't seem to be directly communicated or associated with dogging it. And in Boozer's five or six years with the team, I don't remember Sloan ever subbing out Boozer when CB was daydreaming on D.
Sloan's "reason" was probably to continue developing Millsap. But the flaw was in minutes allocation. The goals of developing PM and a developing a paint-protecting big were not mutually exclusive. In the 2008-09 season Fes got even fewer minutes than Kouf--a fraction of KK2's time--even though KF was arguably the better talent physically. It was probably comfortable to play Millsap because he's such a consistently hard worker, Harpring-style.
In the Laker series, Utah paid for not having developed Fesenko, who ended up having a neutral to net positive effect in every second-round game but didn't have the experience to really make a bigger impact than that.
Going forward, KK2's progress will be interesting. Cleveland has expressed interest in Kouf, and with Big Z gone, there might be an opportunity for development minutes if he ends up there. I hope that the Jazz recognize that bringing back Fes is important for depth at C.
You also note that Popovich did sit Tim Duncan down a few times to 'teach him a lesson' of sorts to play D. Do you think that the situation wtih Carlos Boozer last year was the same state in his relationship with the Jazz as TimD was/is with the Spurs? No. So your response is "what about previous years. If Sloan really believed in D, he should have sat Boozer's big A on the bench and taught him a thing or to." Well if there's one thing we know it is that Carlos would have been fine with that. He would have understood and done right by the team. And then he'd come back better than ever and not tank his trade value or or screw up the locker room or anything. He's a consumate team player... like Tim D appears to be.
If you're suggesting (via sarcasm) that Boozer would've reacted negatively to being benched for dogging it (and I have consistently suggested for only for a few minutes or until the next whistle), then you're letting the inmates run the asylum and are also implying that Sloan is less capable than Popovich to develop appropriate relationships with his players in which the coach is comfortable with rewarding and punishing players as appropriate.
Also, if Boozer had pouted about being benched, then it would've hurt his value, especially in a contract year, especially if Millsap had been able to show that he was replaceable. Because Sloan played Millsap and Boozer together, such a replaceability was less clear.
