RE: On Bird & Pitino

["Niles, Shawn" <SNiles@vanderweil.com>]

The Lakers still had great records with those coaches. They just choked in
the playoffs. No matter who coaches that team, they will always have great
regular season records. But they will never win in the playoffs because Shaq
is not a winner. He does not know what it takes to win.

Shawn Niles


-----Original Message-----
From: Jaime Salud Castillo, Jr. [mailto:jaims@philonline.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2000 11:18 PM
To: Niles, Shawn; 'Andy Shaw'; celtics@igtc.com
Subject: Re: On Bird & Pitino


I thing you are wrong.  You are equating that a good team + anybody =
winning...  Let's apply it to the Lakers, good team + Rambis or Del Harris =
losing

That shows you even if you have a great team but you can't get it to run in
a good way, you will lose.  Bird does  it well but comes up short of going
to the finals but he wins every season.  Still, there's always a promise
shown in every season he coaches because of his ability to steer his team
thru great team work and fundamentals....that's so unlike Pitino's.
----- Original Message -----
From: Niles, Shawn <SNiles@vanderweil.com>
To: 'Andy Shaw' <shaw@transmeta.com>; <celtics@igtc.com>
Sent: Friday, February 11, 2000 4:30 AM
Subject: RE: On Bird & Pitino


> Anyone who thinks Bird is a great coach probably just thinks that because
of
> the love affair with Bird of the eighties. Just because Bird was a great
> player, some people feel that automatically makes him a great coach.
Wrong.
>
> The Celtics would not be any better off right now if they had Bird instead
> of Pitino. Pitino still has to, three years into his tenure here, try and
> get rid of outrageous contracts. He still has guys like Ellison and Minor
> who don't even play but have huge contracts. No one ever mentions the
> extraordinary moves he made to get rid of the contracts of Radja or Dee
> Brown. It is always focus on the negative. Larry's team is just now
getting
> old. They were not over the hill when he took over the team. Unathletic?
Who
> is unathletic besides Rik Smits(Stik Spits)? Certainly you can't call
> Miller, Jackson, or Rose unathletic.
>
> The fact is Bird inherited a veteran, poised team that even M.L. Carr
could
> have coached to victory. Bird has done nothing special. He has never had
to
> deal with his guys being injured. That alone is a huge plus. Pitino has
had
> to go for extended period of times without a few of his best players.
Where
> is Birds championship ring as a coach? He has nothing more to show than
> Pitino does. And now that he realizes his team is getting older, he is
> quitting. If you ask me, he realizes that he is not a good enough coach to
> rebuild a team. So he decides to run. I have never seen a more overrated
> coach. Everyone needs to get over this fixation with Larry. And who said
> Indy never did anything before Larry got there? They have been in the
> playoffs almost every year in the 90's including the conference
championship
> a couple times. Bird has not helped them do anything they couldn't already
> do before.
>
> Only a fool would take Larry over Rick. Watch what happens when Rick can
> finally get some salary cap relief and his hands are untied. Then all
these
> fair-weather fans will say how great a job Pitino did rebuilding the team.
>
> One more quick side note while I am on a tirade: Larry reminds me of Phil
> Jackson. Just another overrated coach who happens to have a good record
> because of the teams he  coaches. Phil never would have won anything
without
> Michael and he would not be winning now without Shaq and Kobe. Phil will
do
> the same thing Larry is doing now. He will jump ship at the first sign of
> trouble just to preserve his image as a good coach. Just like he did in
> Chicago.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andy Shaw [mailto:shaw@transmeta.com]
> Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2000 2:27 PM
> To: celtics@igtc.com
> Subject: Re: On Bird & Pitino
>
>
> |   Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 13:11:17 -0600
> |   From: "Gene Kirkpatrick" <gkir@tjc.tyler.cc.tx.us>
> |
> |   I disagree that Bird is a better coach, etc.  He was able to start at
> |   the top with a seasoned team.  That the players respected him helped
> |   immensely, but he had a good 7'4" center, the best clutch shooter in
> |   basketball, a very good point guard, two banger forwards plus Jalen
> |   Rose, one of the better small forwards around.  Balance.
>
> Are you kidding?
>
> Bird has brought a bunch of over-the-hill, unathletic, moderately
> talented veterans, and made them the best team in the East.  Those
> guys never did anything before Bird got there, and they've been vastly
> over-achieving since he got there.
>
> Bird has done more with less than any other coach in the league.  He
> should get coach of the year, without a doubt.
>
> -Andy
>
>