Re: Pitino haters alert

[Hironaka <j.hironaka@unesco.org>]

> >The bottom line, of course, is that it doesn't matter. Pitino is gone and
> >the players who drove him out of town are still here. The NBA is all about
> >the players, and it's true that Pitino didn't see that soon enough. He made
> >the mistake of trying to coach them. Go figure.
>
> He made the mistake of trying to coach them a certain way. You know...I
> have to go to work and need to be brief, but as Cousy said yesterday
> O'Brien has loosened the reins on Walker. That's a coaching decision.
> Reining him in is a coaching decision.

Geez I never got the impression that Rick Pitino was "reining in" Walker's game.
How did that become the revisionist spin on events? When Obie made his
"travesty" remark about Walker's All Star omission, I remember thinking that it
could just as easily have been Pitino making the identical kind of pro-Toine
remark. Maybe we should take a poll on this. Was Pitino guilty of reining in
Walker's game?

Personally, I think Callahan made very facile observations about the Celtics
tank job on Pitino. They certainly may seem plausible in theory, but do not
closely follow the facts.

As I noted in detail before and will only briefly repeat here, Walker and Pierce
statistically raised their offensive effort during the final, desperate 6-game
losing streak that cost Pitino his job. Moreover, the team as a whole didn't
giving up any more points than they normally do (only one opponent scored more
than 100 points). What do you make of that?

Grant this much to Pierce and Walker, they are a lot more subtle and intelligent
than most of us. For example, when Pierce hugged/stabbed-in-the-back his coach
at the end of the Miami game or talked to the press that week about his
father-son like relations with Pitino, this only further illustrates that we may
be dealing with one of the most calculating, Judas-like, evil presences in the
game. If you are going to stab someone Paul, do it in the open.

And when in that same Miami game, Antoine Walker shot 12-21 from the field with
11 boards, I think this is all the additional proof we need at how subtle his
diabolitical mind is when he decides he wants to "quit" and throw yet another
game to the opposition. If only Shoeless Joe Jackson was as ingenious.

If the players did plot to quit on Pitino--and hey sure they MUST have-- then
sad-to-say the statistical evidence points to the fact that they quit two or
three years ago when they first started playing the league's worst defense. This
didn't happen overnight. The evidence shows they were secretly working
game-by-game on their treacherous plot all this time.

Now backtrack through all their pseudo-sincere public statements over the years
about wanting to win, focusing better on defense, believing more fully in
Pitino's game plan etc.  The only kind word you can say to all thist is, as
young as these kids are, they certainly plotted their sinister goals
masterfully.

Granted I may have made some very strong accusations here but at least they are
based on looking at the evidence before jumping to unexamined conclusions.
That's more than can be said for Gerry Callahan. It's the hubris of the
generalist sports columnist.  Reading him makes me doubt  that he has ever
sought out a conversation with Celtics players or attends/watches many Celtics
games. Stick to what you know.

When I read this kind of stuff, part of me says thank goodness that our star
players in reality don't seem at all as bad as the other spoiled NBA trouble
makers they are lumped together with by our local sportswriters (these two guys
have been model captains all year IMHO). Another part of me actually goes as far
as to wonder whether if character assassination and facile stereotyping of
Walker happens in our city, then maybe similar things happen in other cities to
other players as well. After all few players (maybe not even the rehabilitated
Sprewell) suffer from as bad a reputation among NBA fans as a selfish malcontent
and the "most hated player in the league" (as reported by Peter May based on a
comment by the Miami trainer, of all people, the year we swept them behind
Antoine's strong play). The only reason I kind of welcome the unfair Antoine
stereotypes is that it makes it that much harder to ship him out of Boston for
equal value, and so we end up "stuck" with him.

Back to my train of thought, when all's said and done, I think the evidence is
quite shaky that this tank job against Spintino actually occurred. If the
evidence is this shaky, then I say don't make these blanket accusations. I guess
I see two options:

1)  Once again I'm totally naive and the two captions did, in fact, head a plot
to quit on Pitino. Guess what, I can live with that, because it would have been
the rational, intelligent thing for the players to do at that stage. Three years
of total failure with the defensive system is enough evidence for an adult
professional to make a rational decision. I simply can't relate to or muster the
sense of outrage some fans feel about this betrayal. Anyone who condemns the
players for a lack of loyalty can be my guest next time the Japanese airforce
decides they need to recruit kamikazes. To the degree that Gaston was unwilling
to force the issue or admit he was wrong, the players did Boston Celtics fans a
favor.

2) Even though I appreciate the plausibility of the above scenario, after
examining their public statements and readily available statistical evidence, I
can still only conclude that Pierce and Walker almost certainly didn't
consciously quit on Pitino. I doubt Walker and Pierce could be sufficiently
cunning, much less so patient with losing, in order to accomplish their drawn
out, cynical aim. In three years to the very end, not once did they gave away
their plot by threatening to quit, whereas Pitino threatened to walk out on his
team a number of times. As someone else on this list aptly noted, who's the
quitter here? And then each time Pitino threatened to quit, rather than help him
out the door right then and there, Walker and Pierce were so diabolically clever
that they played better for a few games just to mask their evil plot.

Take your pick. Either way, I just can't get myself worked up with anger and
disgust. What I do know is that this will hurt Walker's league-wide reputation
more than it already is. I think that's a pity. This is why I object to the
facile "he quit" accusation.

Joe

p.s. this post is probably sloppy or repetitive, but it's Fri night here and I
want to click send and get out of here. Have a good weekend folks.

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