Re: coaches

[Josh Ozersky <josh_ozersky@yahoo.com>]

I'm through with defending Pitino, since I think most
of the scorn directed at him is more pathology than
criticism.  But since ML had the gall recently to join
in the chorus, and KK is now speaking up for him, I
want to point out three things about his "success" in
the draft.

1)  The pick that would turn into Antoine was offered
by ML to the Chicago Bulls for the right to talk to
Michael Jordan, on the off chance that he would
un-retire to play for the Celtics.

2)  Carr wanted to trade the pick that became Antoine,
along with next year's top pick (Billups/Anderson), to
Toronto for the rights to Marcus Camby. 

3)  ML previous to that tried to swap the pick that
would become Antoine for New Jersey's which would have
Netted us, at best, Kerry Kittles



--- KK  wrote:
> 
> 
> Mark Berry wrote:
> > 
> > I usually agree with Paul on just about
> everything, but we have polar opposite
> > views on Pitino.
> > 
> > The guy is one of the top 5 basketball coaches in
> the world, and that's a
> > conservative estimate because there are plenty of
> people who know more about
> > this game than we do who would put him right
> alongside Riley at the top of the
> > profession.
> 
> And who might they be? Rabid UK fans? (Riley is a UK
> grad, btw.) I'll grant
> that he's a successful college coach, but even if we
> limit it to NCAA, it's
> difficult to see how he could crack top 5. If we
> include the NBA, the
> statement becomes a complete joke; the guy is simply
> a mediocre, relatively
> inexperienced NBA coach with a losing record
> (145-151), who has won exactly
> 1 playoff series. I understand that the Celtic
> fandom (Paul M.
> notwithstanding) desperately wants to believe that
> we have the best coach in
> basketball, but the reality simply does not bear
> this out. 
> 
> > You don't just get stupid all of a sudden. Pitino
> pulled off a miracle with last
> > year's team. 
> 
> What?!? 36 wins is a "miracle"? The relentless
> Pitino propaganda machine
> apparently is paying dividends - people actually
> bought this crap about
> Pitino's inheriting a "15-win team". The truth is,
> if healthy, that team
> probably would have kicked Pitino's Celtics' butts
> in a best-of-seven. (The
> empirical verification would be somewhat difficult,
> as we'd need 2 Walkers,
> Barroses, Minors, Browns, and, yes, Ellisons, even
> one of whom is difficult
> to summon into service :-))) In other words, he
> already had at least a
> 36-win team when he took the job. The fact that he
> promptly dumped 4 of the
> 5 starters (Wesley/Fox/Williams/Radja), and then had
> to scramble to get 36
> wins does not make his actions miraculous, but
> stupid and unnecesssary.  
> 
> >This year you might as well throw out. And I don't
> want to hear
> > about Larry Brown, because he had cap room to sign
> Geiger and an idiot in
> > Detroit who gave up Ratliff for Stackhouse.
> Remember, Pitino has been saddled by
> > all of M.L.'s bad moves (so bad, they aren't even
> dump-able), although he would
> > have wriggled out of some of it had Brown not
> gotten cold feet on the Radja
> > trade.
> 
> Well, if the losses and screw-ups are just "thrown
> out" or blamed on M.L.,
> and the positives are attributed to St. Rick, no
> wonder he looks like a top
> 5 guy. If we threw out M.L.'s second year as coach
> (IMO, more legitimately
> than Pitino's 2nd year here, since it was a genuine
> tanking job ordered by
> Thanksdad), their records as Celtics coaches are
> actually quite comparable
> (33-49 to 36-46). 
> 
> As for GM duties, we hardly even need to blame
> someone else for M.L.'s bad
> signings to make him at least comparable to Pitino -
> after all, M.L. made
> the brilliant trade that gave us Walker and Mercer
> (NB!). If you think the
> Ellison signing was bad (2 mil/yr), what about the
> Popeye signing (2.67
> mil/yr)? At least Ellison was a Grade-A NBA talent,
> the #1 pick, a 20/10 guy
> when healthy, and a shot-blocker to boot. The point
> is, both signings made
> sense at the time. You say the Minor or Barros
> signings were bad? Well,
> Minor's 2.6 mil/yr, and Barros' 3.67  mil/yr look
> like a bargain compared to
> McCarty's 2.67 mil/yr, given their respective
> performances. And having Marty
> Conlon, or even Szabo to round out the bench made a
> lot more sense than
> getting the likes of Garnett and Schintzius. 
>  
> > Anyway, Pitino's one mistake, in my mind, is
> underestimating the value of
> > veterans in the NBA. <snip>
> > I think Pitino understands that now and will bring
> in some veterans this
> > offseason. 
> 
> If he had understood it 2 years earlier, we'd be in
> the playoffs NOW with
> the veteran leadership and defense of Fox and
> Wesley, not to mention
> Williams's low-post game and ability to get to the
> FT line. Even the
> much-maligned Radja's low-post offense and
> rebounding would've been a
> welcome addition despite his defensive deficiencies.
> Of course, we would not
> have had a crack at Pierce this way, so I guess
> dumping these players was a
> genius move seen all the way through by Pitino. My
> bad, score one for El
> Jefe.
> 
> > There are a lot of things I'm not sure about with
> this team, but one
> > of them isn't Rick Pitino. The guy can coach.
> Period.
> 
> True belief can't be argued with, since it is by
> definition irrational. Hey,
> if you want to believe against all evidence that
> Pitino is a better coach
> than those in the Hall of Fame, and a better GM than
> West, Krause, and
> Whitsitt combined, it's certainly your
> constitutionally guaranteed right.
> 
> 

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