Bill Reynolds Profiles Pitino's Second Year

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

        1.19.99 00:03:08
        BILL REYNOLDS
        Pitino's M.O.: Year II is usually the one

Welcome to Year II.

The second year of the Rick Pitino Era with the Boston
Celtics.

And if history tells us anything, it's that Pitino's
second year is always a real good one, one appreciably
better than expected.

Certainly it was that at Providence College, where the
improbable Friars went all the way to the Final Four in
1987. It was so in New York, where the Knicks won 54
games in Pitino's second year, a 30-game turnaround
from when he got the job. It was that way in Kentucky,
where his Wildcats came back from the dead, the season
that showed the college basketball world Pitino's
Wildcats were soon going to be one of the top programs
in the country.

Rebuilding?

That's for other guys. Pitino didn't get where he is
today by doing things by the numbers. Everywhere he's
been he's sped up the process, putting everything on
fast-forward, doing in two years what was supposed to
take five. That's at the core of his mystique, this
feeling that Pitino not only can take programs out of
the ashes, he can do it virtually overnight.

The reason?

So much of Pitino's coaching philosophy is the
implementation of a certain style -- a work ethic plus
a trapping, uptempo style of play. Pitino doesn't
exactly creep into new coaching situations on little
cats' feet. He comes in like a cyclone, hits the
players over the head with his philosophy, then starts
putting the pieces back together after they've been
through basketball culture shock.

``By the second year there's a much better comfort
level,'' Pitino says. ``The players know what to
expect, both from a conditioning standpoint and our
style of play, and we build on all the work from the
year before.''

So is history due to repeat itself?

Interesting question.

This is not going be a normal year for anyone, not just
the Celtics. Lack of a regular training camp, a
shortened schedule, four games a week: it's all
uncharted territory.

Will the Celtics benefit since they return essentially
the same team that went through Pitino's basketball
boot camp last year and then went on to win 36 games,
21 more than they did the year before under M.L. Carr?
Or will they fall victim to the vagaries of this
season's new reality, one that will have the Celtics
out of the FleetCenter for most of February, not
exactly the best way to start a season?

``I don't really know what to expect,'' Pitino says.
``It might help us. It might not. With us, though, it's
going to be next year that should be the breakthrough
year for us. That's the one we're pointing for.''

Understandably.

The Celtics have talent at four positions. Antoine
Walker is one of the best young players in the game.
Ron Mercer showed last year that he's a star in
waiting. Kenny Anderson is an unquestioned talent. Paul
Pierce has been billed as one of the best young players
entering the NBA.

This is not to say that they all don't come with some
asterisks.

[Image] Can Pierce be the kind of NBA player his
college career promised?

[Image] Can the fragile Anderson stay healthy, and also
eradicate his image as a bit of a problem child?

[Image] And the biggest of all: Can Walker grow up? Can
he be the leader the Celtics so need him to be, the
kind of player you hitch the franchise to? Or is he
always going to be an unfulflled promise, a great
talent that never really gets actualized, one big
tease.

Questions, questions.

Yet all have talent, and there's no overestimating this
in the NBA. It's a talent league, and all the
overacheving in the world can only take you so far.
Because after all the preparation and all the work and
all the strategy, someone simply burns you on talent
alone.

Is this enough?

Of course not. But it's more than a start.

They still need help at center, and the word yesterday
was that very soon the announcement will come that
Travis Knight will be traded to the Lakers for Tony
Battie. Two years ago Battie was the fifth pick in the
draft, and if nothing else is more athletic than
Knight, better suited for Pitino's pressing style. Even
with Battie, though, the Celtics need more help inside.
They also need more quality depth.

But there is sense for optimism, no question about it.
Don't believe it? Think back two years to M.L.'s last
year, when there was little hope, little clue, and the
future looked as bleak as nuclear winter.

For in Pitino's view of reality, the NBA universe is
changing. The Bulls are history. The Knicks, the Heat
and the Pacers are aging, their window of opportunity
becoming smaller and smaller. Which leaves the future
in the Eastern Conference a blank slate, on which the
Celtics, Nets, 76ers and Wizards are all trying to
write their own stories.

It just takes a little patience.

But will Pitino have the same patience to stay the
course, even if this rebuilding effort takes longer
than his others? Even if the stakes are higher now, the
task at hand nothing less than to restore the most
successful franchise in NBA history back to its glory
days?

``I didn't leave a national championship team, and
something so special as the University Of Kentucky, not
to have patience for what we're doing here,'' he says.
``The pieces of the puzzle are coming together.''

They always do in Pitino's second year.

Just check his history.

       

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