Re: RP & Williams

["K. Kveraga" <6166kkver@umbsky.cc.umb.edu>]

Adam Suchocki wrote:

> Now, to be honest, I love watching this team play, and I've gained a ton of respect for Pitino as a coach.  But I'm not willing to cut him a ton of slack for the bad rookie mistakes he made in his first stint as an NBA GM.  He has corrected a lot of his initial personell mistakes with a lot more poise than he had early on, but the truth of the matter is...the talent pool for this team is not as big as it could have been if more planning and restraint had been used early on.  No amount of spin is going to ma
> ke me believe that it was reasonable to spend all of our cap room before the salary cap was raised (every other team in the league seemed to understand the need to wait) - and no amount of spin is going to make me believe that we got fair value for Williams.
>

These are my sentiments as well. Granted, I may be biased - Pitino's getting rid of E. Williams did not exactly endear the GM part of RP to me, since I loved watching Eric work in the paint, and thought he and Walker would become a powerful duo on offense. However, right after Pitino dumped Williams, one of Boston's sportswriters (May? Ryan?) wrote that his litmus test for Pitino was how he was going to deal with Williams. According to the scribe, Pitino saw through the gaudy numbers and sparkling offensive
repertoire the selfish stat chaser etc. etc. that Eric was, and promptly rid the Celtics of this cancer, thus passing the litmus test with flying colors. (Can't guarantee the exact details, but that was the gist). I was surprised, to say the least, about the writer's opinion of Eric, since I had never thought of him as a Todd Day type. Obviously, a scribe is closer to the action than the fans are, as fans usually don't get to fly on the team plane, sit at the press table, and hold private conversations with
players and coaches. Another (remote) possibility is that the guy, for one reason or another, was trying to rationalize the departure of a talented young forward.
I wonder if anybody on the list would agree with the sportswriter, and why.