New Vipers coach Smith getting his shot [The Monitor]

http://www.themonitor.com/sports/article_98174500-4a86-11e3-94e4-0019bb30f31a.html

Dennis Silva II | The Monitor

McALLEN — Who is Nevada Smith?
“We think he’s a young and upcoming coach,” Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey said. “He’s done a lot of innovative things. We feel he’s someone who can help the (Rio Grande Valley) Vipers right now and help the Rockets down the road.”
Morey knows who Nevada Smith is. It was Morey who plucked the 33-year-old Smith from NCAA Division III Keystone College to be the head coach of the Rockets’ NBA Development League affiliate Rio Grande Valley. The previous two coaches who stood in Smith’s position are now assistant coaches in the NBA, Chris Finch with the Rockets and Nick Nurse with the Toronto Raptors. Each of those coaches led the Vipers to D-League championships, Nurse as recently as last season.
Morey recruited Finch from the Belgium Basketball League. Nurse was previously a successful head coach for the NBDL’s Iowa Energy.
It’s clear Morey has an eye for potential. So how can a young man from West Leechburg, Penn., a graduate of a small high school in Kiski Area, find himself in deep south Texas, ready to take the reins of an organization that is regarded as one of the D-League’s finest?
“He’s such a hard worker,” said Rob Klune, Smith’s head coach at Bethany College, who hired Smith to be his assistant at Allegheny College years later. “You can have the knowledge and passion, but he really puts in the time. It’s what I’m really impressed with, and that’s what makes him a great success as a coach.
“He knows how to make players better, and that’s a skill. Because of his knowledge, kids thought the game better.”

SURE SHOT

Growing up, Smith — whose first name is derived from the character in “The Carpetbaggers,” his mother Ryta’s favorite book — was a standout baseball and basketball player as a child. But it wasn’t until he was 11 years old that he was ready to turn his full attention to hoops.
“When I knew I really liked basketball the most, I was at a playground and just wanted someone to hit me ground balls. There were no kids in the neighborhood, so I got a basketball and walked to the courts, spent 2 1/2 hours by myself. That’s when I realized that was where I wanted to go.”
Smith’s father, Nick, passed away from cancer when he was 8. Not long before he chose basketball as his true love, his stepfather Steve Peace walked into his life. Peace was a central figure in encouraging Smith in sports.
Peace remembers well when his stepson first beat him in a game of one-on-one. Smith was 14.
“Nevada told me when he was 12 years old he was going to coach in the NBA,” Peace said. “I said, ‘Boy, you better get it together!’ It’s just amazing. He’s a nice young kid living his dream.”
Smith was a natural shooter. It was a gift. Even when he tore both ACLs in high school, missing his entire junior season, he still managed to get recruited to NCAA DIII Bethany College. There, he grew into a legend. The 2002 graduate of the West Virginia school still ranks fifth on Bethany’s all-time scoring list. In 2000-2001, he led the nation in 3-point makes per game with 3.9 (101 in 26 games).
When he graduated, his 313 career triples ranked 14th all-time in NCAA Division III.
“He was very smart, knew how to move and get himself open, and he had a quick release,” said Klune, who even allowed Smith to call the plays his junior and senior seasons. “He would demoralize teams. They’d think they’d have him covered, and he’d just shoot from deeper and make it.
“He could have been a really good point guard, but since he was a tremendous shooter we needed him to take a lot of shots.”

NET GAIN

After his playing days were over, Smith ventured through the coaching ranks. Aside from one year as a head coach at SUNY Canton junior college, he spent his entire 10-year coaching tenure in NCAA Division III. Whereas most coaches are desperate to leave those ranks, Smith found his calling.
“I understood the passion and I understood what you can get out of DIII,” Smith said. “I’ve always been one to wear many hats and you just get used to it. Every place is different and every place has its challenges. It helped me adapt and adjust.”
His philosophy as a coach has been simple: run, attack, shoot, score. The Rockets are an organization that smiles upon layups, free throws and 3-pointers (the game’s most efficient shots) and frowns upon midrange and long two-point shots. Those just so happen to be aspects of the offensive game that Smith embraces.
He enamored the Rockets with his creativity. At Keystone College, he would often play five guards at the same time. When he had only seven healthy players available at Keystone College last season, he’d do random things, like a triangle-and-2 (a rare defensive alignment) for one possession, to get the opponent to call a timeout and afford his players a few extra minutes of rest.
It got Morey’s attention. After an early-October trip visiting and learning from coaches at NCAA Division I schools, Smith returned to his Keystone College office to find a voicemail from someone from the Rockets, gauging his interest in the position. It was a natural fit. Smith admits that even when he was coaching in college, he had all his focus on studying the NBA.
“We cast a pretty wide net. We interviewed close to 30 people,” Morey said. “We took him through a pretty rigorous interview process, did a lot of background research. We feel Nevada is pretty similar to when we hired Chris Finch. Chris was coaching in Belgium and no one really knew who he was either.
“We’re always looking for guys that have a lot of upside potential. We like to give a shot to young candidates who have a chance at developing over time into something really great.”

NO JOKE

Smith knows people will be watching him. For a coach to go from NCAA DIII to the NBA D-League is unprecedented. Smith wasn’t the Rockets’ first choice for the gig, but he was on the short list.
He’s confident he’ll help doubters figure out why.
“I’ll be the first one to say it’s an obscure hire,” he said. “I had a lot of friends who thought it was a joke. But I think when you do a great job somewhere and someone sees it, or someone values what you value … I think that’s what happened here.
“If there was ever a point that I didn’t think I could be successful here, I would have never taken the opportunity.”