The Satanic Pitino Verses - Last Post

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

Pitino says reporters don't listen to him. When he makes a statement
like "Billups is my point guard of the future", he really believes
it at the time - 100 percent so, but he's flexible and adaptable,
so if a better situation comes along later, he will change. You
have to be adaptable, he said.

He also said Eric Williams could start or come off the bench...

There's no truth to Bird's statement that he offered him the 
assistant coaches job. Why would he do that? It doesn't make
sense, as with Bird as an assistant coach, if Pitino got off to
a bad start, he could be easily replaced by Bird. Pitino
respects Bird greatly and doesn't believe Larry lied about the
Asistant Coaches thing, just it was a conclusion Larry possibly 
drew from their conversations.

Pitino said Bird told him he was his number one choice to coach
the Celtics, but as noted in Bird's book, it was Roy Williams
who Bird really wanted first. Pitino said he didn't blame Bird for that,
since he did the same thing when he was recruiting high school
players. Pitino would tell them, they were his number one choice...

Look for an upcoming Steve Bulpett article on Pitino, as he said
he was talking to Bulpett today. Pitino said Bulpett questioned
him on why he was speeding up the Celtics rebuilding plans?

Pitino replied:

They Took a step backwards last season
Necessary marketing tool
He wants the C's to step it up
It's a great thing for the players to be accountable - Nothing
wrong with pressure.
Ray