(no subject)

[opi@unesco.org]

    I'm of course only relying on the boxscore, but IMO Pitino is
wasting our time and Fortson's time by handing opponents the same
mismatch Denver did all season strictly out of desperation (starting
Fortson at center). Since we have a center to play alongside Fortson
(Vitaly), by all means we need to already have them getting reps playing
alongside each other, rather than going at each other hard every
practice trying to make one or the other guy redundant.

    One reason I'm concerned about this meaningless exhibition game is
because Pitino did something very similar with Battie last year. Despite
ALL the evidence, Pitino continually groomed Battie as a backup center
for 80% of the season, insisting he just needed "work in the
weightroom". When Antoine went down, Pitino finally had no choice but to
test Battie's play at power forward, and naturally Battie flourished to
fan expectations, exploiting his natural born advantages to average just
a shade under 10 rebounds and tons of blocks. IMO, Battie would never
shed his career-backup "El Busto" tag and inconsistent play until he was
allowed repeated repetitions and confidence-building at his natural
forward position, where he actually has hope of guarding people.
Thankfully, Pitino changed his tune with Battie (saying he could guard
even a Grant Hill etc. blah, blah, blah).

    Yet now we seem to be going through Pitino's same stubborn "learning
process" with Fortson, a guy with the perfect temperament and talent to
be an Oakley-type menace playing alongside any true center.

    Taken on its own, last night was just an innocent game, wherein
Pitino tried out  two distinct lineups so he could evaluate as many of
his players as possible. But IMO he desperately needs to evaluate his
players at their natural positions, playing shoulder-to-shoulder with
the lineup they'll play most regularly with. Instead Pitino's starts
Pierce at forward, Walker at power forward and goes with a 6-7 center,
and our poor-man's Ron Mercer (Duck Cheaney) at guard.

Is that an improved lineup over last season? Gimmeabreak. I feel like we
wasted an entire game having our key players doing reps at a position
they logically should only play in emergencies during the season.
Remember, we have three absolutely critical starters playing a brand new
position (Pierce, Walker and Fortson). I can't stress enough my feeling
that Pitino should give all of  them the reps now, or the fans will
suffer the consequences.  When I first read that Fortson and Vitaly were
going at each other hard every second of practice, I knew the Celts were
falling off-track. Now I read that VP got 13 minutes last night and was
the 10th guy off the Celts bench (presumably on the "pressing unit" no
less) and I just feel like my worst "he's not THAT dumb, is he?"
suspicion was confirmed. Under the new cap, we are going to be facing
many clubs with starting lineups that have played together daily for
many meaningful games in a row. We fans don't have time for this BS.

    IMO Fort and VP should be working together going against Pervis and
Battie every day, who are an ideal practice (since they represent a
fairly typical, mobile and tall 4-5 combination in the NBA). If Fort and
Vitaly can't win a daily war of attrition against Pervis and Battie,
then fine we should scrap the whole idea. But it sounds like we aren't
even trying, and that really worries me. The Celtics have talent. Pitino
needs to proactively define the potential mismatches the Celts pose for
other teams, rather than worry about how we match up with opposing
talent.

    On top of this, Pitino should stop wasting Fortson's career like he
nearly did with Battie. The NBA is full of player whose offensive game
slowly (or immediately) deteriorated as they lost confidence in their
ability to score. In the case of Fortson, we are asking the kid to stay
reasonably confident offensively (he was a terrific scorer in college)
despite giving up at least half-a-foot in wingspan and equal bulk to the
guy defending him (last night it was Eldon Campbell). If it were you,
would you be able to maintain your form and keep trying to shoot over
these guys? That kid is physically mismatched at center, even if he
still did incredibly gutsy work last year (let's face it, so far in his
fascinating career he has made phenoms like Battie, Keon Clark and now
apparently even Vitaly look like "El Busto" benchwarmers). Nevertheless,
Fortson is a lottery team center, the type of 6-7 guy who will
unavoidably always be in foul trouble (and eventually break down
completely) trying to guard seven-footers only a desperate team and
idiot coach would force him to guard.

    I know it's only a preseason game, everything seems innocent enough,
and Pitino is as glib and confident as ever. Bottom line, I'd like to
see from now on that our players get as many repetitions as possible at
the position that suits them and exploits the Celtics' overall team
"strengths" (rebounding, toughness, and clearly defined roles and  go-to
scorers). Until we start doing this (even if we start now it will take
time), opposing teams with less talent but far more year-to-year
cohesion will beat us. I guarantee you that this, in turn, will lead us
to make misguided evaluations of certain players, and then the
merry-go-round of wholesale player transactions will start all over
again (as if we haven't seen it coming). :-) Obviously, there are people
on this list that advocate that sort of thing.

    The only solace I'll take is that Pitino has always been relatively
weak at coaching big men, so any input from Bill Russell can provide
great synergy. As incredibly gifted a coach as Pitino is, I don't think
he'd make any informed "top 100" list of guys you'd want to develop low
post talent. I think his string of fantastic success in college without
any true center (Walter McCarty may have been his best), made him think
his innovative system might continue working at the next level even with
a Mark Pope-type finesse guy manning the middle (Travis Knight etc.)  If
Russell watched the game last night, he was probably tempted to get on
the cell phone and cackle in Pitino's face. Now that he has the bodies,
Pitino needs to cut down the gimmicks and think only of building team
chemistry and defining each starter's role. The way his mind seems to
work, I'd actually be surprised right now if Pitino starts both Fortson
and Vitaly to open the season.

Joe

****