CNNSI: Pitino's Hard Sell In Boston

[Way Of The Ray <wayray@ix.netcom.com>]

CNN/SI - NBA Basketball - Celtics stumble under Pitino, 
but he presses on - Friday April 23, 1999 03:44 
            



      The hard sell 
      Celtics stumble in Pitino's second year, but he presses on
            Click here for more on this story
      Posted: Friday April 23, 1999 03:44 PM
              
      By John Donovan, CNN/SI 
      ATLANTA -- Rick Pitino is still hard-selling his brand of basketball, even 
      if he doesn't have a team this year that can play it. He's still telling 
      anyone who will listen -- and, really, it's impossible not to hear Pitino 
      -- that his way is the right way. 
      The question now is if people are still buying it. And, maybe more 
      important, the question is if Pitino can find a team next year that can 
      help him push it before the buyers bail out altogether. 
      In the last-gasp days of Year Two of his rebuilding of the most celebrated 
      franchise in the NBA, Pitino's Boston Celtics are scraping bedrock. The 
      young, beat-up and booed-at-home Celtics limp toward the finish of this 
      chopped-down season with no shot at the playoffs and one very wary eye 
      toward next year. 
      They have some talent, for sure. And they have youth on their side. But in 
      the NBA, sometimes that's just not enough. 
      The Celtics, 16-27 going into Friday night's game in Chicago, will finish 
      below .500 this season for the sixth straight year. It will be the first 
      time in Pitino's circuitous career -- five stops in the pros and college 
      -- that he has won fewer than 63 percent of his games in his second year. 
      It has been a year of crushing defeats amid raised expectations, a year 
      that has the basketball-spoiled fans of Boston wondering whether the man 
      who has made his mark by reviving floundering teams has lost his golden 
      touch. 
      "There's no doubt in my mind he can do it," said Atlanta guard Jeff 
      Sheppard, an important member of Pitino's 1996 NCAA championship team at 
      Kentucky. "He's done it everywhere he's been. He's one of the hardest 
      working coaches around, and he's going to get his coaches and his staff to 
      work just as hard." 
      
      Getting the players to work hard, though, may be a whole different 
      challenge. There are rumblings that Pitino's players are starting to rebel 
      against his pressing, up-tempo style of play and his pressing, up-tempo 
      personality. Players, the theory goes, aren't willing to play that hard, 
      afraid that expending all that energy could shorten their career. 
      "We don't press all the time -- that's a myth. If you like to average 110 
      points, like to play that style ..." Pitino said. "Players are very stats 
      conscious, and when you play that way, you get more shots, you get more 
      points, you get more rebounds." 
      And, Pitino insists, "the better conditioned athletes always last the 
      longest." 
      Pitino, who also acts as the team's president, has forced his style with 
      mixed results. He has clashed with point guard Kenny Anderson, and refused 
      to take him on a road trip after an argument on the sideline. He 
      reportedly screamed at prized rookie Paul Pierce -- brought him nearly to 
      tears, the story goes -- after Pierce missed some free throws in a 
      two-point loss to the New Jersey Nets on March 1. 
      One of his better players, guard Ron Mercer, may even look to play 
      elsewhere next season. And Mercer, like Sheppard, is a Pitino protege, 
      another who played on the 1996 title team at Kentucky. 
      "We start playing like that," one Hawks player said of the Celtics' 
      pressing style, "and I'm going on the injured list." 
      If things worked right for the Celtics -- if they worked the way Pitino 
      envisions them working -- the Celtics would be one of the most exciting 
      and entertaining teams to watch in the NBA. They would be, in effect, 
      exactly what the NBA is not anymore -- a running, gunning, pressing, 
      turnover-creating nightmare. They would rebound, they would pass with the 
      best teams out there. They would create confusion. They would score. 
      But things have not worked right for the Celtics -- not even close. They 
      are too young -- 11 players have less than four years in the league. 
      They've never been in good-enough condition to run, they've been hurt, 
      they've bristled under Pitino's brash style. They have lost. Badly. 
      "They're terrible. You know they're terrible," Houston forward Charles 
      Barkley said recently. "Don't ask me why, because I don't want to get 
      personal. They've got a great coach, but the players have to play." 
      How have things gone so wrong? Pitino points to the lockout and the 
      shortened preseason, which he says played into the hands of older, savvier 
      teams. He blames the lockout for his team starting the season woefully out 
      of shape -- not exactly the type of team that can run and press 
      effectively. 
                        Pitino's Progress 
                        Rick Pitino's record of rebuilding broken programs is 
                        solid. But the job is proving to be a tough one with the 
                        Celtics. Here's a look at Pitino's track record:
                        YearTeamLYBP2AP
                        77-78
                        84-85
                        88-89
                        86-87
                        96-97
                        Boston U.
                        Providence
                        Kentucky
                        NY Knicks
                        Celtics*
                        10-15
                        11-20
                        13-19
                        24-58
                        15-67
                        21-9
                        25-9
                        22-6
                        52-30
                        16-26

                        LYBP=Last Year Before Pitino 
                        2AP=Second year under Pitino 
                        * Through games of 4/21/99

              
      And then there are the injuries, especially the ones lately: Antoine 
      Walker is out, probably for the remainder of the season, with a bad ankle. 
      Mercer is suffering from lower back spasms. Anderson and Pervis Ellison, 
      the most seasoned of the Celtics' players, are on the injured list. The 
      Celtics are playing now without three starters. 
      "Right now, when you're losing games, people are going to question your 
      system, they're going to question your coaching ability," Sheppard said. 
      "But if you're 30-10, you're going to have everyone wanting to run that 
      same system." 
      These Celtics are, Pitino admits, worse than they were last season, when 
      they finished 36-46, an 11-game improvement from the previous year. In the 
      same breath, though, the salesman in Pitino insists they will be better in 
      1999-2000. 
      In this off-season, Pitino plans to jettison some of his youngsters for a 
      seasoned free agent or two. He plans on a full conditioning program for 
      all his players so they come back stronger next season, both to run his 
      style of play and to avoid injury. 
      He looks forward to a full training camp and more practice to teach the 
      young Celtics the basics of the press, the trap, the whole Pitino style. 
      He plans on using the lessons of this season to make a run at the playoffs 
      next season. 
      "This is a challenge of gigantic proportions," he said. "All these 
      adversities are going to help us in the third year." 
      If not, he'll really have a tough sell next season. <snips>