Re: Thoughts on the disappointing Celtics

[Dan Forant <dforant1@nycap.rr.com>]

Nice lenghty post about Pitino's shortcomings, Summary: his coaching
methods suck, which is a large part of why the team is struggling *more*
than it should be. He's tanking this season. 

At 11:57 PM 1/11/00 EST, you wrote:
>I've always believed that too much importance is put on individual
>games, particularly losses to bad teams. What matters at the end
>of the season is how many wins you have, not whether you lost to
>Chicago. For instance Miami has lost to Golden State and Vancouver
>(as well as our own "lowly" Celtics). 
>
>With that said, criticisms based on the team's overall record are
>justifiable and the current 14-19 record is extremely disappointing.
>Personally, I think that calls for firing the coach, especially
>midseason, are unproductive. It's extremely unlikely because of 
>Pitino's contract, for one thing; would Gaston want to eat $30M+
>because the Celtics are underperforming by three or four wins less
>than halfway through the season? If the Celtics completely melt 
>down, it could be a different story at the end of the season.
>
>A note on one of the more common criticisms. There have been
>quite a few people who believe that fronting the post is a bad
>coaching decision. In fact, the Miami Heat who have great inside
>defenders in Mourning and PJ Brown front the post (and subsequently
>trap) almost always, according to Hubie Brown and Jack Ramsay, as
>well as what I've seen of the Heat on TNT/TBS. It's not some sort
>of weird Pitino innovation, it's really a standard defensive move.
>Has anyone noticed that most teams front Walker when he posts up?
>I think that it's even more prevalent now that defensive players
>can't dislodge the post player under the new rules. The Celtics
>may not execute that well fronting the post (for instance they 
>often forget to pressure the passer) but the decision to front the
>post is a conventional (and probably necessary) one.
>
>I'll agree with another common criticism, which is that Pitino's
>substitution patterns are sometimes mystifying. In particular, he
>overreacts to players getting into foul trouble, in my opinion.
>He'll put in a player and yank him 20 seconds later when he gets
>a foul. That's got to make the player feel a bit uncomfortable
>when he's in foul trouble, to know that he's going to get yanked
>unconditionally once the whistle blows. But I don't think that
>substitution decisions are making that big a difference on the 
>bottom line of wins. 
>
>A major problem with the Celtics, as Cecil notes, is that they
>lack an identity. This Celtics team has much more talent on paper
>than the '97-'98 team that won 36 games, but is performing worse
>over the recent stretch. The '97-'98 team had a clear identity; they
>were a running, pressing, chaos team, similar to this year's 
>overachieving Magic. It made me a little nervous when Pitino said
>that he was going to make the Celtics a more conventional team,
>because a team that plays like everyone else is probably going to
>have results like everyone else, which in the case of a young team
>with no superstars is not that great. He was also moving away from
>the philosophy that made him successful. His idea was to have a
>halfcourt first unit and a pressing, running second unit with
>different identities but the reality is that he doesn't have enough
>talented depth to do that, especially after injuries. So now he's
>mixed the units up but he has some players who are suited for
>halfcourt play and some who are suited for the running game - a bad
>mix, as Mark Berry noted.
>
>At some point Pitino is going to have to make a decision on which
>type of team he wants to have and build towards it, unless he can
>add enough quality depth to do the two units approach (which some
>teams have done - New York had an uptempo second unit last year
>when Camby, Sprewell, and Childs played together). If he wants a
>halfcourt team, Battie may become less valuable and McCarty becomes
>worthless. If he wants a running team, Potapenko and Fortson don't
>fit particularly well. 
>
>Another personnel problem is that if Antoine is going to play 40+
>minutes at power forward, there aren't enough minutes for Potapenko,
>Battie and Fortson to share. If we sign Fortson to a similar contract
>to Potapenko, we're probably looking at a $90M three-headed center - 
>not very economical for the production we get. Either Antoine makes
>the move to small forward or one of the three "centers" becomes trade
>bait. I believe that Fortson will be getting more playing time as he
>gets his conditioning back up, adjusts to the new rules, and learns
>the plays, and hopefully he will make a big difference for this team
>down the stretch run.
>
>The trading deadline is February 24. I'm thinking that Pitino might
>be willing to trade a first round pick or some other asset (along
>with Pervis, say) to get some immediate veteran help if the team
>hasn't picked up its play. Chris Gatling? I also have this weird,
>queasy feeling that Antoine might be involved in some three-way
>megadeal, though base-year compensation rules make that unlikely.
>Anyway, long post and more negative than I've probably ever been
>(except when I was down on Mercer). Hopefully the Celtics get their
>act together because the rest of the month could be a killer.
>
>Alex
>
>