Re: coaches

[KK <Kestutis.Kveraga@Dartmouth.EDU>]

Josh Ozersky wrote:
> 
> I'm through with defending Pitino, since I think most
> of the scorn directed at him is more pathology than
> criticism.  

OK, so those of us who dare to criticize St. Rick are ill. Why does the
pro-Pitino camp remind me of the Soviet Union where, if you disagreed with
the Great Leader, Teacher and Father, you were mentally ill by definition
(and treated accordingly). Maybe they take after their leader, the greatest
coach/GM of all time? Did you see RP's reaction when a reporter asked him if
he evaluated his own performance? He looked ready to sic Leo Papile on the
poor scribe. "What?! ME? Evaluate myself??? Are you crazy?!!!" 

> But since ML had the gall recently to join
> in the chorus, and KK is now speaking up for him, I

I'm not claiming M.L. was a great coach/GM - that would be foolish. All I'm
saying is that his record as such is not much worse than Pitino's. I'm just
really tired of Pitino's constantly repeating mendacious mantras to cover up
his own ineptitude: "this was a 15-win team"; "I took over an expansion
team". No, Rick, you made it such, then scrambled to get it back to where it
was when you arrived. 
 
> 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

Well, if we listed all the stupid things Pitino wanted to do, but was saved
from himself by others, the list would be no less "impressive". How about
angling to draft Dirk Nowitzki in lieu of Pierce, or thinking of trading
Pierce for Potapenko, for starters? 
Forget M.L. - it's easy to blast him. Let's talk about why we're still not
in the playoffs - and the answer is, it's mainly because of Pitino's
decisions as GM and coach. If it's more comfortable for you to believe
otherwise, that's fine - I understand. I'd like to be able to engage in
self-deception too, but as the old witch in Bergman's "The Magician" would
say, I see what I see, and I know what I know. I can only hope that Pitino
has learned a lot in his tenure as coach/GM, and that we'll see a
significant improvement in his performance in the future.