Re: Pitino gets the loss

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

> Unfortunately your evaluation is right on the money.  Why do you sign a
> 6'10" guy who can not play the 4 or 5 spot, and can not shoot or dribble
> well enough to play the 3 spot, and isn't another Magic Johnson or Lamer
> Odom ? Could he have waited and gotten Derek Anderson if he wanted a former
> player ?

I assume you're talking about McCarty here. McCarty, I will agree, is 
a move that is really questionable. I suppose that Pitino could have 
decided to cut him instead of signing him but that wouldn't have given
him any cap room. Best case is that McCarty develops and bulks up enough
to be a mobile backup 4 I guess. If Fortson returns and Walker moves to
playing some 3, I would think that both McCarty and Williams could lose
their rotation spots. They're only averaging 28 minutes between them and
I don't think that cutting Fortson, Walker, or Griffin's minutes in 
order to fit them in makes sense.
 
> Has anyone noticed on several occasions when we have the ball with around 10
> seconds left in a quarter how Anderson casually brings the ball up court
> wasting about half of the time instead of really pushing it to possibly set
> up a play and getting a better shot ?

Actually, every team in the league does this the same way. Nobody starts
running their play with more than about 5-8 seconds left because if they
did, they'll probably end up shooting with enough time left on the clock
for the other team to get a decent opportunity at the other end. Even when
teams have 20 seconds left, they'll bring the ball past halfcourt and sit
on the ball until about 6 seconds left.

Alex