Duncan vs Pitino

[Kim Malo <kmalo19@idt.net>]

At 09:03 AM 5/1/98 -0500, Patrick Goggin <gogginpd@email.uc.edu> wrote:

>I've got an interesting question that my wife and I have been going back
>and forth on.  I was ecstatic when the Celts signed Pitino last off-season
>and crestfallen when we didn't get Duncan.  I said I would rather have
>Duncan as a player than Pitino as a coach if given the choice.  Throw
>everything else out the window (What if he didn't resign?  What if he got
>injured?  What if we got Riley and Duncan?) and just answer the question:
>If you had a choice between hiring Pitino and drafting Duncan, what would
>you do?

Depends. If getting Duncan would have meant retaining ML in both his then
current positions, then Pitino, hands down. ML had demonstrated an ability
to turn even Duncan into the next coming of Eric Montross. He did it with
the original model, who was limited but useful under Ford. Remember last
year? Lots of energy shown at times, no clue shown by anyone at any time.
This was a team that couldn't even inbound the ball 5 times out of 10. And a
ton of injuries, at least in part because the coach GM was more worried
about smiles than discipline or conditioning.

And think about who would be on the team, with no hope in sight of
attracting decent FA to this laughingstock, much less any cap room to sign
one. Fox would have likely been gone anyways, as he cared and was sick of
the losing. Dino would be here, coming to an injured list soon near you.
Listor back in the middle? Dana -think of Dana the last couple years, when I
was sure he couldn't even be a back-up point guard on a bad team- and Dana
today. Walker. This year we saw that he really can do all those things other
than shoot that everyone talked about. They won 15 games last year. They
could have taken the pressure off Denver to not break Philly's record this
year. And that's no disrespect intended to Duncan. Bringing in Pitino gave
me hope of a future -no guarantees, but hope. ML, no matter who he got as a
player, just gave me nausea.

-Kim
Kim Malo
kmalo19@idt.net