Projo writers getting into the Pitino action

[kevin lok <kevin.lok@lycosmail.com>]

http://www.projo.com/report/pjb/stories/03188813.htm
JIM DONALDSON
Regression rules where progress was promised
At the All-Star break two years ago, the Boston Celtics were three games
under .500, with a record of 22-25.
That was midway through Teflon Rick Pitino's first season as Head Coach,
Big Cheese, and Lord High Poobah, not to mention Resident Genius, of pro
basketball's most storied franchise.
Now, halfway through Year Three in the reign of Non-Stick Rick, the
Celts are seven games under .500, at 21-28.
This is progress?
Two years ago, Antoine Walker was playing in the All-Star Game. Not this
year, despite having had an additional two seasons of tutelage by Slick
Rick.
This is progress?
Walker has, in fact, matured so much under Pitino's guidance and
steadying influence that he has picked up a mere 15 technical fouls so
far this season.
This is progress?
Pitino preaches that success is a choice. One of the many reasons his
club has not been successful is that they too often choose not to play
defense.
Defense once was a point of pride for Pitino teams. Discipline and
conditioning were two of the things on which he built his reputation.
Yet, last Tuesday night at New Jersey, the Celts were shredded for 47
points in the first quarter, and 74 in the first half, in a 131-113
embarrassment at the hands of the Nets.
After which, Pitino compared his team to the Washington Generals,
perennial patsies for the Harlem Globetrotters.
So much for Celtic pride. And Teflon Rick's.
Speaking of embarrassments, the loss at New Jersey was Boston's 19th in
23 games on the road, including two to the lowly Bulls in Chicago.
And now the Celts are looking at six in a row on the road, starting with
tonight's game at Utah, and 14 of their next 22 away from the sterile
confines of the FleetCenter.
This is progress?
Celtics owner Paul Gaston knows more about business than basketball.
Obviously.
So let's put this in terms he can understand.
Let us suppose some struggling Fortune 500 firm, its sales slumping and
stock price slipping, hired a new CEO for, say, $7 million a year.
Which, coincidentally, was the price Gaston paid to lure Pitino from
Kentucky to Boston.
Then suppose that two years later sales were down even further and the
stock price was even lower. What do you suppose would happen to the CEO?

That is not progress. And neither is what Non-Stick Rick has done with
the Celtics.
Of the five players Pitino has drafted, only one remains on the team. He
had the third and sixth picks overall in 1997, but both were gone in
less than two years.
Chauncey Billups, projected as the point guard of the future when the
Celts made him the third choice in the 1997 draft, turned out to have no
future at all in Boston.
He was gone midway through his rookie year because, Pitino said: ``He
couldn't play the point.''
This is progress?
Pitino has been busy lately trying to give away Danny Fortson,
attempting to make him the latest in a lengthy, and largely forgettable,
list of players to pass through the revolving door of the Celtics'
locker room, joining the likes of Travis Knight, Zan Tabac, Chris Mills,
Ron Mercer, Popeye Jones, Andrew DeClercq, Dwayne Schintzius, Dontae
Jones, John Thomas.
Of course, one can only bemoan the fact that the Celts came so close to
acquiring the greatest player ever to come out of New Zealand, Sean
Marks. First Tim Duncan slips away, now Sean Marks. Talk about
frustration.
This is progress?
Yet Teflon Rick seldom is criticized for his array of nearly nonstop
personnel moves that are touted as big deals guaranteed to improve the
club, but too often turn out to be the mere spinning of wheels.
And why is there so little outrage?
Because almost nobody cares about the team.
Pitino was hired to create a buzz around Celtics basketball, yet midway
through his third year the Celts elicit more yawns than cheers. No one
talks about them. No one is passionate about them. Not only has Pitino
failed to develop a winner, he has failed to create excitement.
The Celtics aren't even on the same radar screen of New England sports
popularity as the Red Sox and Patriots. In terms of interest, the
Celtics may even lag behind the cult of lemming-like Bruins fans who
gladly keep pouring money into Jeremy Jacobs's pockets, even though he
won't spend to enable his hockey team to contend for the Stanley Cup.
This is progress?
Pitino promised a playoff team this season. But if the season ended
today, the Celts would be a lottery team, not a playoff team.
Is this progress?
No.
It's Teflon Rick Pitino's team in his third season as coach of the
Boston Celtics, at $7 million per.

http://www.projo.com/report/pjb/stories/03188822.htm
CELTICS,
Rick, your slip is showing,
Celts' coach under gun as losing stirs up criticism,
By MIKE SZOSTAK,Journal Sports Writer,


The heat is on Rick Pitino.,His Boston Celtics have lost 8 of their last
10 games and will launch the post-All-Star portion of their schedule
tonight seven games under .500.,Their 21-28 record puts them in 10th
place in the Eastern Conference, 41/2 games behind eighth-place
Milwaukee and out of the playoffs that Pitino promised for this
spring.,Fans and media critics are skewering him on talk radio and in
print.,What's worse, the Celtics seem every bit as crippled by salary
cap and ownership spending limits as they were when Pitino came to town
almost three years ago and relieved M.L. Carr as ringmaster of the
Celtics Circus. The team payroll is in the $41 million range, well over
the NBA cap of $34 million as a result of exceptions.,And it's nobody's
fault but Pitino's. Ten of the 14 Celtics currently under contract are
his. Pitino may be a good coach -- and many in Celtics Nation are even
beginning to question that -- but as a judge of talent and as a contract
negotiator, he has flopped.,Pitino has called the shots since May 8,
1997, when he bounce-passed Red Auerbach into a vice-chairman's seat and
assumed the titles of president and head coach for the tidy sum of $7
million per year for six years.,In the 33 months he has collected owner
Paul Gaston's money, Pitino has done absolutely nothing of Auerbachian
proportions. He has not won a lot of basketball games as coach, as his
76-105 record indicates. His vaunted pressing defense appears with the
predictability of the New England weather.,Also, Pitino has yet to
negotiate a significant deal as president. He has drafted five players.
Only one, Paul Pierce, will wear a Celtics uniform tonight. Two,
Australian Ben Pepper and guard Kris Clack, never made it to training
camp.,Pitino has signed 19 free agents. Only three -- Adrian Griffin,
Calbert Cheaney and Doug Overton, all signed this season -- are with the
team.,Pitino has traded for 13 players. Six -- Walter McCarty, Kenny
Anderson, Tony Battie, Vitaly Potapenko, Eric Williams and Danny Fortson
-- remain on the current roster.,Pitino's latest deal, Fortson to
Toronto for unheralded guard Alvin Williams and unknown forward Sean
Marks last Wednesday, collapsed within 48 hours when Williams failed his
physical exam.,The Celtics offered no explanation. The Raptors said
Williams did have arthroscopic knee surgery two years ago, but has been
problem-free since the procedure. They suggested the Celtics squashed
the deal because of negative public reaction. The transaction amounted
to this: Boston sacrificed Ron Mercer, the No. 6 pick in the 1997 NBA
Draft, for Williams, the No. 48 draft pick in that same draft.,It used
to be the Celtics, particularly Auerbach, who stole basketball talent.
No longer. Of the 36 players who have been signed, traded for or drafted
here in the last 33 months, only Pierce has been an unqualified
success.,Consider some of the others. Travis Knight struck it rich when
he filled in admirably for the injured Shaquille O'Neal of the Lakers in
1996-97. Boston signed him to a lucrative free-agent contract on July 7,
1997. On Opening Night of the 1997-98 season, Knight crashed the glass
for 13 rebounds and also scored 8 points in a 92-85 upset of the world
champion Chicago Bulls. Knight never went to the boards like that again
and averaged 4.9 rebounds per game. His 6.5 scoring average wsn't much
better. Pitino traded him before the 1999 season.,Chauncey Billups, the
No. 3 pick of the 1997 Draft, behind Tim Duncan and Keith Van Horn, was
traded midway through his rookie campaign because Pitino concluded he
couldn't play the point. The Celtics got Anderson and others in return.
Anderson is finally having a relatively injury-free year.,Mercer played
two years and showed promise. But he rejected a four-year, $28-million
contract extension and last August was shipped to Denver. Unable to sign
him, Denver traded him to Orlando.,Last year, Pitino parted with Andrew
DeClercq and his first-round pick (No. 8, as it turned out) for
Potapenko, Cleveland's backup center. Two days later, Pitino signed him
to a long-term extension.,In trying to develop a playoff team, Pitino
has shown all the patience of a 2-year-old in a Newport Creamery. To
sign Knight, he renounced the rights to nine players, among them
respected veterans Rick Fox, Alton Lister and Frank Brickowski. To get
Anderson and unload salary cap money, he traded Dee Brown, his captain.
Last year Pitino signed Popeye Jones to a three-year contract, partly
because of his stablizing influence as a veteran. Jones missed 31 games
because of injuries and was sent to Denver as part of the Mercer deal.
The lack of veteran leadership is a glaring weakness on Pitino's
team.,Billups didn't really have a chance to prove himself. Eric
Williams, a first-round draft choice, was sent to Denver for two
second-rounders because his approach displeased Pitino. Chris Mills was
traded two months after being acquired in a trade, ostensibly because he
could not run with Pitino's up-tempo offense. Alleged rebounders John
Thomas, Roy Rogers Jr. and Zan Tabak never really got a chance. Neither
has Fortson, now, according to the Boston Herald, rumored to be Seattle
bound for Shammond Williams, Greg Foster and possibly Ruben
Patterson.,Pitino keeps lamenting that he has a young team. That's
because he brings in so many new players that they don't have a chance
to grow old together. Last May Antoine Walker pleaded for the nucleus to
remain unchanged. When training camp started, half the team needed
``Hello! My Name Is . . .'' tags.,The Celtics are in trouble. They are
losing on the court. Attendance is down. Fan indifference mounts. Two
years ago Pitino was asked about added pressure from picking the players
he would coach.,``That's the fun aspect of the job,'' he replied.
``That's what creates your passion. Pressure is the best part about it.
. . . With so much at stake, with the magnitude so great, the fun
element comes into play more than ever. It makes you want to wake up
early, stay up late and constantly try to find new ways to help the club
win.'',Well, as a seventh consecutive losing season looms, Pitino may be
getting up early and staying up late, but he is not finding ways to help
his team win. As coach or as president.