The problem with this is that Smart has never tried to be a lead scorer except when on teams are where the actual lead scorers were injured and not playing. The premise that he was is a straw man. All evidence also indicates Smart always wanted to be a point guard but kept getting stuck on rosters where he was being asked to be a wing. The big thing that changed this year is that Stevens (either with input from Ime or based on his own experience trying to coach around undersized score-first point guards) rebuilt the roster to put Smart back in his natural position.My Personal Opinion....which means squat.....Ime handled Smart exactly right. Smart wanted to be a star and have a voice. IE "Be the Captain". Often without the production to be an "Alpha".
Smart had been trying to do that with Good D and ATTEMPTING to Score 20+ a game with threes.
Ime said "Hey Do it with Defense instead. Be a DEFENSIVE Alpha".
Smart bought in and has excelled now with Hellacious D and passing and letting the scoring come to him for 10-20 a night.
Seems easy but he also had to sell the rest of the team that"On the defensive end Smart is the leader/Alpha. Listen to him". That had the added benefit of also giving him some "cred" on the offensive end as the "PG". JT and JB to their credit bought in and all three have flourished and have had plenty of Ego stroke to keep everyone happy and committed.
I don’t say any of this to take anything away from Ime. He’s been great and he successfully built an elite defense in part around emphasizing the unique strengths of Smart’s defense. I just don’t think there’s a good reason to rewrite Smart’s career to make him some sort of problem Ime solved instead of someone who’s always been a very good player and teammate but who was previously stuck playing his career out of position and never complained about it.