Herald: No more trader rick

[opi@unesco.org]

The Herald reports that Pitino has changed his "Trader Rick" tune. I
think a lot of our jumpiness about Pitino's seeming impatience with
players came in the first year-and-a-half when he surprised us by
dumping Wesley, Fox, Williams, Dino, Chris Mills (all in exchange for
Waltah and a second round pick basically) and then followed up by
dumping most of their FA or rookie replacements (Billups, Thomas,
Travis, Edney etc). Plus the fact that we've had three team co-captains
(Dee, then Pervis, now Dana) who went from being praised to the high
heavens to becoming benchwarmers.

Interestingly, Pitino nixed the reported Derek Strong for Pervis Ellison
even swap because Strong has one more year left at around 3.1 million.
The 32-year-old missed the first 39 games this season with knee
tendintitis and is averaging only 4 minutes and 1.3 points. He's a
career 7.1 points and 5.0 rebounds player in 19 minutes. He does not
block shots (0.22) or pass out of the pivot (0.7 assists). Nor is he a
very efficient scorer (.431 career FG%).


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Celts Notebook by Mark Cofman
Pitino plies his patience

It's about this time of year, as the NBA trade deadline approaches, that
Rick Pitino sees the biggest difference between pro and college
basketball. It's when the Celtics coach appears to long for the college
game.

``When you get things going in collegiate basketball, you're winning 90
percent of your games,'' Pitino said. ``You always feel great about your
chances of winning. The thing that's bad about professional  basketball
is that with 82 games, you don't like losing at all, so suddenly you
want to make changes because you can't take it anymore.''

Pitino said he fell into that trap during his first year with the
Celtics.

``If you don't see the potential like I didn't see the potential the
first year with Dino Radja - players like that - then you are inclined
to want to make changes right away. That doesn't work at this level.

``Unless I can't sign someone, in which case I'll make a change, I'm not
going to go through all these struggles and through all this pain - and
it is pain at its best - without someday seeing the fruits of this pain.
So we're just going to probably allow some of these players to mature
and grow up.''

Not a Strong move

Other than talks involving Danny Fortson, whom Pitino fears he won't be
able to re-sign, the Celtics don't appear to be actively pursuing any
deals. ESPN reported yesterday the Celtics had shot down a deal that
would have sent Pervis Ellison to Orlando for ex-Celtic Derek Strong.
Ellison's attraction to the Magic would be salary cap space. He's in the
last year of his contract for $2.75 million. Strong, earning $3.1
million this season, has another year left.

``That trade was never brought to my attention (by GM Chris Wallace),
but we wouldn't be interested in taking on the extra (contract),'' said
Pitino.