Re: "to be liked is a choice"

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

Tom,

Jim's original objection was to Joe's contention that Pitino was 
distorting reality and shifting blame when he talked about Chris
Wallace and "his staff" instead of "my staff". I agreed with Jim
and added the example about Pierce. At no point did I ever say,
"This clears Pitino's reputation," as you seem to believe I was
trying to do. I just put up an example where Pitino gets unfairly
bashed. And if you don't believe it happens, go back and re-read
Kestas' response to my post, which was exactly the type of thing
I was referring to. No, it wasn't "tongue-in-cheek".

Jim and I were solely referring to Pitino's comments regarding
his staff and how they are being unfairly (in my opinion) twisted
to put him in a further negative light. What you seem to be 
saying below is, Pitino has a history of "manipulations", so
people are justified in reading whatever meaning they want from
his words, regardless of whether there's any truth to it. 
Personally, I think this defense of the "irrational anti-Pitino" 
is pretty lame, as is saying that Jim and I are on a "high horse"
for responding to certain unfair, or at least dubious, criticisms
of Pitino.

Alex

> Alex, with all due respect, I have a hard time believing that Pitino's
> problems with his reputation really stem from the few instances in which he
> has sought to include his staff in a public discussion of the team's
> decision process. I don't remember him taking heat over the Pierce
> selection, and if such a remark was made I have a hard time believing that
> it wasn't meant tongue-in-cheek. You've made valuable contributions to this
> debate in the past, for example pointing out the contradiction of
> criticizing the players he has assembled and his coaching of them (if the
> former is bad, then how can you assess the latter) but this latest defense
> of Pitino is pretty lame. 
>
> If the ONLY thing that Pitino's critics in the press and on this list had
> to point to were his statements regarding his staff, then you'd have a
> case, but I hardly think that is the situation. The reason that Pitino's
> credibility is SO eroded (to the point that people could even start to
> believe that references to his staff might be an attempt to shift blame OR
> that people could even start to believe Pitino might attempt to concoct a
> phony trade to motivate Fortson/depress his market value) is due to a
> history of three years of attempted manipulations large and small. It is
> the accumulation of Pitino's own past statements and actions that have led
> to this state of affairs, not a dislike of Rick that has led us to read
> every little thing he says five different ways (except in the case of Peter
> May ;)