Editor’s note: This is the second installment of Conley’s Corner, Volume 2.

Why didn’t the coach do this? Or that? They do this more. This guy should play less. They should’ve called timeout here, run this action.

Poor execution? That’s the coach’s fault. Poor effort? That is, too.

The discourse around coaching in professional sports is 90 percent centered on blame. Sometimes it may be fair, other times not.

Mike Conley has seen it all. He has worked with numerous coaches — some really good ones — over the course of his NBA career and seen the dynamics and challenges at play.

So, how difficult is it to get pro players to carry out a plan throughout a game and, on a bigger scale, a season?

“It’s hard, man. You’re talking about coaching young, 21, 22 year old guys who make a lot of money – make way more than the coaches,” Conley said. “How much control do you really have, you know? We have so much power as players, and that can be tough on coaches to have that authority on some teams.”

It’s why Conley thinks the better coaches are the ones that strike the balance between getting on guys to play hard “without overstepping the line when the player doesn’t like them no more.”

That wasn’t as much of a concern in past eras, but is entirely prevalent in today’s game.

“That’s the tough part about being a coach nowadays is you have to walk a line at all times,” Conley said, “but also be cognizant of, ‘Hey, man, I’ve got to do my job. I’ve got to do what’s best for the team. I need all y’all to fall in line, otherwise we’re going to get beat up.’ ”

So, a personal relationship needs to be developed to build a bond strong enough to withstand the difficult conversations you have to have and decisions you have to make through the course of the season.

Conley said those are often struck through one-on-one conversations, where perhaps the coach will pull you into his office and talk about a variety of subjects related to the team. That makes players feel involved, invested and important.

But just as important, the guard noted, is consistency with your message. You can’t pick and choose who to call out and when. That’s an area where Timberwolves coach Chris Finch has been praised for years, as he’s been just as — if not more — willing to get on Anthony Edwards as the last guy on the bench.

“On the bench, on film, it’s just calling out everybody as you see it. It’s not like, ‘Oh, he called me out, but didn’t call out Rudy or somebody else.’ We don’t have that thought,” Conley said. “It’s more like, ‘Hey man, I appreciate that he’s going at everybody, that he’s treating everybody on that same length as far as trying to get better.’ So, I think that’s what the good ones do.”

Even Conley gets called out?

“Oh yeah,” Conley said. “It may not be as demonstrative all the time, because if I mess up, I know I messed up. Some guys will mess up and be like, ‘I thought I was doing the right thing.’ ”

Getting on everyone when the situation presents itself is easier said than done, though. There are personalities and egos at play in every situation. You can’t be sure how someone will respond to criticism or a benching. But Conley insinuated that, for a coach, the best way to toe that line is just to smash it over.

“From my experience, what’s worked the most is when coaches don’t care as much. When they don’t care and they just say, ‘Hey, I’m going to go down with this ship the way that I know to play the game, or the way that I know how to coach,’” he said. “And they’re not too engulfed with the, ‘Oh, I want to make sure he’s good today, or that guy’s good today.’ It’s more of, ‘I don’t care, I need you here, I need you to do this. I need you to play defense’ no matter what.”

You’ve got to stick to your guns. You’ve got to be consistent with your approach.

“Eventually, you get enough guys on that boat, and if one guy is not, it’s like, ‘Hey, you’re the odd man out.’ And then you’ve got control of the team,” Conley said. “As opposed to it being the opposite way where you’re trying to do favors for people and pat this guy’s back and not pat that guy’s back. Guys see that, guys pay attention to all that and they’re like, ‘Ah, no man, I don’t mess with him no more.’ It can shut down really easily.”

In-game decisions

That’s all coaching on a macro level. Then there are the game-to-game, situational decisions that can determine the outcomes of possessions and maybe even games. But Conley believes bench bosses rarely have that type of impact once the ball is tipped.

“It might be a coach’s call to call time out or not to call time out late in the game — that can happen all the time,” Conley said. “But that’s one play out of the entirety of the game.”

Sure, he noted, there may be the outlier situation where someone on the bench will call for a zone defense to be implemented, which can muck up the contest and turn the tide.

“You’ll end up having games like that where somebody does that and saves you,” he said, “but other than that, most of the time, man, we’ve got to go out and execute what the game plan is or isn’t, make the adjustments that are to be made. If we don’t, man, I take a lot of that responsibility.”

Because so much of it is determined by players, including what teams do on both ends of the floor. Coaches talk all the time about playing to strengths and hiding weaknesses. Why hasn’t Minnesota gone small much this season? Because Finch doesn’t think that group can rebound.

It’s the personnel

If you wonder why a team doesn’t try something — a lineup, an action, a coverage — it very well may be because they can’t.

“I know I have that understanding. I know there’s some guys who just assume that we can do something, and I’ll look at them like, ‘Man, we don’t have Wemby to do that.’ ‘We don’t have another guy that can break the paint and make that actual pass that you’re talking about,’ ” Conley said. “So, we have to adjust around those plays and find a set that works for who we have. But it is a thing.”

Your personnel has to determine your approach.

“I look at different teams I’ve been on. (In) Memphis, we played a certain way because we had a certain group of guys. We had a defensive juggernaut with two bigs that could score in the paint and do a lot of things,” Conley said. “Utah was the opposite. We spread you out and we got 45 percent 3-point shooters everywhere, and we’re shooting 50 threes every game because we could – that’s what we had.

“This team is different. We’ve got a lot of two-way guys, a lot of guys who can run and work well in the paint and work well just pushing the ball and having space to maneuver. So, it just changes with who you have.”

In the end, Conley said coaches merely give players the template. He said coaches are most impactful in training camp when foundations are laid and identities are formed.

“Once that’s set in place, then it’s like you have to live up to that as a player,” he said. “And if you don’t, we can point fingers all over the place, but we’ve still got to look at ourselves like, ‘Man, we’ve got to do better at X, Y and Z.’ ”

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