Re: The Holley Lama's Excellent Pitino Column (long and angry)

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@BATTELLE.ORG>]

First of all, I hope the subject of this post is titled in sarcasm. Nothing
Holley has ever written has been remotely close to excellent.

Is Holley Andre Miller's brother? His agent? Did Andre save Holley's mom
from a burning building? How many times has he written about the Potapenko
trade? Good God, we get the point-Holley thinks it was a bad trade. Was it?
I've come to think it was, but in the annals of bad trades, this ranks way
down the list. For crying out loud, he mentioned the Fortson for
Williams/Marks deal (we would have been better off if that had gone
through), but didn't mention the Mercer-Fortson deal. Now THAT was a bad
trade.

Holley has said all this stuff before. He wants a GM. Not gonna happen.
Pitino left the Knicks because of a dispute with the GM. He will never
accept a position where he doesn't have final say on personnel matters.
Period. End of story. We all might as well stop talking about it. If Gaston
broaches this subject, Pitino is gone.

Are the Celtics in worse shape now than when Pitino arrived? Oh, I don't
know. It's easy to say (as Holley has, time and time again) M.L. Carr left
him with Walker and two lottery picks. The truth is he left him with Walker,
Mercer and Billups. Pitino's cup hardly runneth over with talent.

Pitino has made some bad decisions, but most of them are correctable. There
is a market out there for Potapenko and Battie. Their contracts are not so
outrageous that other teams wouldn't be interested (especially in Vitaly).
If there is interest in Matt Geiger at $9 mill/year, then there is interest
in Vitaly for half that. Even Kenny probably is tradeable to a team
desperate for a point guard and with deep pockets (hello N.Y.).

He botched Mercer-Fortson immeasurably. Fortson is gone, and I don't see a
sign-and-trade happening because no team is going to want to pay him much
more than the $2 mil exception anyway. If you can get him for the exception,
why trade? Eric Williams is a horrible, untradeable albatross. Only Denver's
draft pick, in what sounds like a strong draft next year, can salvage this
trade. Maybe the C's will finally get lucky in the lottery and land the big
man they desperately need.

Anyway, I found Holley's column to be a tired rehash espousing an
unrealistic solution (a new GM). He suggests packaging a bad contract with
the Denver pick to get in the free agent market this summer. Sure, I'll bet
the Spurs are itching to acquire Eric Williams and a conditional number one
pick for Tim Duncan. Or the Raptors for Tracy McGrady. Or the Hornets for
Eddie Jones. Pathetic. A lousy column from an amateurish hack.

Nothing new from him.

Mark