BSG On Pitino Taking A Nutty

[Way Of The Ray <wayray@ix.netcom.com>]

Digital City: Boston - Boston's Sports Guy

      Thursday, March 2, 2000





       
                 

      Http://WWW.BOSTONSPORTSGUY.COM -- 1ST POSTING, 1:30am, 3/2

      RANTING AND RAVING
      Rick Pitino laid into Boston fans last night for being too negative... but 
      was it a case of the pot calling the kettle black?


      It took almost three full years and a whopping 111 losses, but Rick Pitino 
      finally snapped last night. 

      The impetus? A post-game press conference at the Fleet Center following a 
      devastating last-second loss to the Raptors. Usually smooth with the 
      press, the Celtics coach embarked on a bizarre, rambling diatribe about 
      Boston fans, spurred on because his players were intermittently booed by 
      the hometown fans. Here were some of the highlights:

      * "As soon as they realize that those three guys (Larry Bird, Kevin McHale 
      and Robert Parish) aren't coming through that (locker room) door, the 
      better this town will be." 

      * "All this negativity that's in this town sucks... it makes the greatest 
      city in the world lousy." 

      * "We're not coming to play with Bird, McHale and Parish, or Cousy and 
      Russell, we're coming with young guys who want to get better and want to 
      play the game... and we're gonna stay positive all the way through. And if 
      you think I'm gonna succumb to negativity, you're wrong -- you've got the 
      wrong guy leading this basketball team."

      It all made for mesmerizing theater; as we listened to Coach P lose it 
      after the game, I thought my father was going to drive his jeep into a 
      telephone pole. We were giggling, cackling, our eyeballs bulging... it was 
      that good.

      Of course, Pitino was right, to an extent, anyway. The Fleet Center fans 
      haven't been very supportive this season -- much to my chagrin, as I've 
      mentioned many times on this site -- and they've been especially 
      mean-spirited towards Antoine Walker (who always plays hard even though 
      he's his own worst enemy at times). Last night the fans booed at least 
      seven or eight times during Boston's lifeless second quarter (no 
      assists!); in the second half, they really gave it to Vitaly Potapenko, 
      who was throwing up enough bricks from the free throw line to build a wall 
      under the basket. Unfair? Yes.

      Predictable? Yes.

      Pitino deserves the blame here, not the players. You want to talk about 
      negativity? Coach P still whines about not getting Tim Duncan in the '97 
      Lottery three years after the fact. He says things like "we're definitely 
      making the playoffs this year" one minute and "we're not gonna get better 
      until we add a veteran star" the next. He bemoans the team's lack of cap 
      room when he's been responsible for 75% of the contracts that have been 
      brought in over the past two years.

      Truth be told, there hasn't been an Italian celebrity who bombed this 
      badly since Sofia Coppola was cast in "Godfather 3." In almost every 
      crucial instance over the past three years, Pitino has made the wrong move 
      for the Celtics. Here's a quick laundry list... take it for what you will:

      * Took Chauncey Billups and Ron Mercer with the 3rd and 6th picks in the 
      draft and passed up guys like Tracy McGrady, Derek Anderson, Mo Taylor and 
      Brevin Knight.

      * Renounced the rights to veterans Rick Fox and David Wesley to spend $48 
      million over the next six years on Chris Mills and the immortal Travis 
      Knight... both of who were shipped out of town within one season.

      * Gave up on Billups after 50 games and packaged him with Dee Brown (whose 
      contract expires this season) for Kenny Anderson, who was in the middle of 
      a $50 million, 7-year deal that expires four years from now (even though 
      he's having a pretty good season, the C's couldn't give Anderson away with 
      that contract).

      * Drafted Paul Pierce with the #10 pick (looks good on paper, but who else 
      was he going to take there, Bonzi Wells?)

      * Signed oft-injured forward Popeye Jones to a 3-year, $9 million deal and 
      later admitted that Popeye probably couldn't play because of bad knees in 
      the first year of that contract.

      * Gave Antoine Walker the maximum $71 million extension. (Note: Probably 
      the right move at the time, but he IS basically untradeable now.)

      * Spent $15.6 million over three years for two mediocre role players 
      (Walter McCarty and Cal Cheaney... and "mediocre" is being nice).

      * Traded a #1 pick and a valuable backup big man (Andrew DeClerq) for 
      Vitaly Potapenko, who was then signed to a $33 million deal. (Note: I 
      still like this one, but that's just me.)

      * Signed Tony Battie to a four-year, $24 million contract extension before 
      this season (there's no way the Battman could have gotten that in the open 
      market).

      * Traded Ron Mercer to Denver for Danny Fortson and a future #1... he also 
      was forced to swap salary in the deal (Popeye for Eric Williams), which 
      cost the C's an additional $22 million over the next five years (this 
      season and the next four).

      * Realized after about two seconds that Walker, Fortson and Potapenko 
      can't play on the floor at the same time -- because Walker can't play 
      small forward -- which made one of them expendable. So he dealt Fortson 
      for two guys who didn't even get off Toronto's bench last night... and 
      then ignominiously cancelled the deal once the fans and media started 
      skewering the deal. That wasn't a botched trade, it was a cry for help.

      The end result? Because of Pitino's wheeling and dealing, the Celtics have 
      a young team but no room to operate under the salary cap, which seems 
      almost impossible when you think about it. They had four top-ten picks 
      over the past three seasons and only possess one true commodity (Pierce, 
      who hasn't improved since last season). Most of the players on the team 
      are untradeable, including their most expensive two players (Walker and 
      Anderson). Barring a major trade, they're well over the cap until after 
      the 2001 season, which rules out any veteran free agent signings this 
      summer.

      Pitino's performance on the coaching end has been just as lacking. If this 
      was a movie and Pitino was the director and star, he'd be Emilio Estevez 
      in "Wisdom." As I pointed out on Tuesday, not only have none of the 
      players on this team improved over the past season -- save for Potapenko, 
      maybe -- but Pitino doesn't seem to understand how to coach at an NBA 
      level. This team has changed its identity more times than Madonna over the 
      past three seasons. The substitution patterns are impossible to figure 
      out. And even the game strategies have been curious -- for instance, why 
      didn't Pitino do defense/offense substitutions with Cal Cheaney and Kenny 
      Anderson last night when Kenny couldn't guard any of the Raptors in crunch 
      time? And why did Danny Fortson start the game and play the first five 
      minutes of the third quarter... and then NEVER re-enter the game 
      (Potapenko played the last 19 minutes, which is utterly illogical). I 
      could go on all night...

      (Negative? Who's being negative?)

      Hell, I might as well save my energy and venom for bigger and better 
      things. Three months from now, Pitino will bolt for North Carolina ("This 
      is the one job I couldn't turn down... no, I'm not abandoning the 
      Celtics... I love the Celtics... I'm proud of everything we 
      accomplished... I just couldn't turn down Dean Smith...") and we'll be 
      stuck with a bloated cap and a team that hasn't improved in three years. 
      The spin control will start wafting north a few months later ("The 
      budgetary constraints became too much... I couldn't get through to players 
      who were making more money than me... it's impossible to win without cap 
      room... it was an impossible task... if we had gotten Duncan, it might 
      have been different") and every interview/column/sound bite will reinforce 
      our bitterness towards Pitino and the last three years in general.

      He was wrong about one thing, though. Nobody in Boston dwells on the past 
      anymore; the fans aren't negative and unsupportive, just ignorant and 
      impatient. If you're keeping score, Celtic Pride died the moment they 
      bulldozed the Fleet Center and ushered in the ML Carr Era -- overpriced 
      tickets, mascots, Jumbotron, jugglers, the Noise Meter, trivia contests, 
      fireworks and rock music blaring during every timeout. Our fans simply 
      don't know how to support this team anymore, for two reasons:

      1. The Fleet Center doesn't allow them to think for themselves.
      2. Most of the true diehards can't afford to attend the games. 

      We've turned into Orlando and Sacramento, folks. But that's a story for 
      another time. 

      Right now it's Year Three of the Pitino Era. The Celtics still stink... 
      and so do their fans. At least we're a good match. <snip>


     

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