RE: Michael Holley finally says it.

[Kestas <Kestutis.Kveraga@Dartmouth.EDU>]

At 11:13 AM 2/11/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Who do you think would have done a better job, Kestas? You think Larry would
>have miraculasly made Ellison's, Minor's, and Dana's contracts go away. 

Their contracts are not the issue here, although they're a hindrance.
Pitino's ability to coach at the NBA level, his player evaluation skills,
and his performance as a de-facto GM are. Who could've done a better job?
Larry Brown, probably Bird, apparently Doc Rivers, and likely a whole slew
of other professional NBA coaches. 


>If
>Larry were still here, we probably would still be stuck with Dino and Dee as
>well. 

Guess what, we were still stuck with (half of?) Dino's contract on our cap
for the full duration - but without his services. It's nice that Pitino got
rid of Dee's contract, but let's not forget he took on a much bigger
contract in return - Kenny's $50 mil. I'm not  complaining about that
trade, just pointing out that Brown's contract did not come off our cap
"for nothing". 

>I am only using Larry as an example because that is the name most
>people bring up as to who we should have gotten instead of Pitino. Although
>some people, obviously with no basketball knowledge, have suggested M.L.
>would have done a better job.
>
>The bottom line is this: Why not wait and see what Pitino does when he can
>get rid of these guys he had nothing to do with signing. I am sure that Rick
>loves it that Minor and Ellison are eating up the salary cap when neither
>can play. 

How are Minor and Ellison's contracts affecting his ability to coach and
judge talent? Do you think Pitino will suddenly turn into Red Auerbach when
Ellison's contract comes off our cap in a few months (or even sooner in
another bad trade)? Minor was a serviceable backup before he broke his hip
- certainly a much better value for the same money (2.6M/yr) that Pitino
signed his favorite pet McCarty, or the permanently injured Popeye, to. 

Lest this doesn't convince you that Pitino is not exactly a immune to
wasting cap space on marginal or poorly fitting players, just recall the
Travis Knight and Chris Mills signings. Ellison ($12M) and Minor ($13M)
contracts look pretty inconsequential compared to those Pitino signings
(Knight: $22M, Mills: $26M). To be fair, he was able to get rid of those
contracts, but replaced them with contracts such as McCarty's $8M and
Battie's $25M - one downright stupid, the other very questionable at this
point, given Battie's performance so far. He got rid of another couple of
stupid signings (Popeye and Schintzius) in the Mercer/Fortson trade, but
assumed Williams's contract in return. I do think that the Potapenko
signing was good, and Walker's, I guess, inevitable, but look at Pitino's
shooting % in signing the right people to decent contracts - it's worse
that McCarty's.

The truth is, probably every NBA team has some "deadbeats" - people who are
not performing up to their contract for whatever reason. They're all hard
or impossible to unload, and often have much bigger contracts than Pervis,
Minor, or Barros. But other coaches and GMs somehow manage to cope with it
and succeed despite the  presence of such contracts on their cap. This is,
quite simply, not a valid excuse for someone who was given $50M to do
precisely that. 

>And I was not as much picking on Holley's lack of athletic ability as I was
>simply stating a fact. A lot of sports writers are failed athletes. They
>figure they can't play sports so they might as well write about them. But
>then they are constantly upset at athletes because of jealosy. Holley fits
>this mold perfectly. 

No, he doesn't. He is criticizing the coach, not the players. I don't
recall him blaming the players for this debacle. Now, Shaughnessy, Ryan &
Co. is another matter...