Re: more on the 2 cents

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

At 10:15 PM 12/19/00 -0800, Cecil Wright wrote:
>I mentioned Wallace last week in a post which nobody responded to.  Posts
>were streaming in urging a trade of Walker, Pierce...Walker/Pierce.... etc.
>I asked if anyone thought that Washington regretted moving Wallace and
>Webber so soon in their careers?

Absolutely agree with Cecil here.

Does anyone else remember the reaction on this list when Jordan took over
the Wizards front office? I remember complaints about how they were getting
a winner, unlike Pitino, who would have them in the playoffs in no time.
Well, Jordan's team is 5-19 and guess what, he's blaming his players after
making a grand playoff prediction. Rebuilding a cold, bad weather team
without much cap room is tough even for Mike. At some point you just need
talent to win.

It's also interesting how the fortunes of the Mavericks have changed. Don
Nelson was considered the biggest idiot of a GM ever -- and we benefitted
from his bad moves. Remember when Nash and Nowitzki were more proof of how
dumb Nelson was? And I remember that sportswriters would gleefully write
how Pitino was such an idiot that he would have taken Nowitzki over Pierce
too. That's the nice thing about being a sportswriter, no accountability.
But having Mark Cuban's money certainly makes it easy to be a good GM.

Anyway.. Pitino's made some bad, bad moves. I mean, the thought of having
Marion and McGrady instead of Anderson and Potapenko... ouch. It must kill
Pitino to see two ultratalented, super athletic prototype Pitinoballers
tearing up the league while he's got two mediocre "basketball players".
After seeing them this year, I've completely conceded that he blew some
golden opportunities, and boy it hurts. Honestly, I think he's probably
learned from his mistakes, but too late to save him. And beyond the
personnel moves, he's not getting the job done on the coaching end. I still
believe that his theory could probably work if executed correctly. But he's
not getting it executed correctly. I have a lot of respect for him because
it's obvious that he's working his butt off and that he absolutely hates
losing in a way that a lot of his players don't.

One thing I have to credit him for is not trading away the future for
immediate success. He's gone the other way. Some on the list talk about
firing Pitino if he goes near that Denver pick. That Denver pick is a
sacrifice that Pitino made: he gave up present value to get that for the
future. He didn't have an obligation to do that. If he wants to trade that
pick to "win right now", I can't blame him.

Alex