Re: How to beat the Lakers

[Kestutis.Kveraga@dartmouth.edu (Kestutis Kveraga)]

--- You wrote:
   Run,run,run.
   Pitino had the right idea. Take 9-11 players who can run all day, defend
like madmen all over the court and hit close to 40% from the three point
stripe when the break isn't there.
   He could never find the players to compliment that system. They just
wouldn't run like he wanted them to, except, perhaps, the first 14 games of
Kenny Anderson's 1st season, before he got hurt.
   No big center(Shaq)can keep up that pace.
   Knock Pitino as you will, but he had the right formula, just the wrong
era. He wanted players like Havlicek,Cowens,Tom Sanders, Russell,Cousy,
etc.....
--- end of quote ---

Your post just reaffirms the point I made several years ago about Pitino's
"system": if it requires superb athletes with superior basketball ability (or,
to take your post literally, Hall of Fame-caliber players) to succeed, it has
already failed as a basketball philosophy. It's like Communism, one of whose
premises requires that its practitioners be some Platonic-ideal human beings (I
won't get into the other, equally untenable ones). Besides, if you could have
such players at your disposal, why bother with some cockamamie scheme, except
to boost your ego as a coaching genius? 

He did well in college for two main reasons, in that order: 
1) his recruiting skills;
2) he squeezed more out of these players than previous coaches.

He didn't win the NCAAs with BU or PC, and he won't with Louisville,
until/unless he recruits players with the talent of Antoine Walker/Derek
Anderson/Ron Mercer/Jamal Mashburn. He's already been bitchin' 'n' moanin'
about the lack of talent there, 'cause he knows his "system" won't do jack sh*t
for his winning percentage, except maybe get his players into a better
cardiovascular shape. 
I know, I know, can we just forget he was ever associated with the Boston
Celtics? What a nightmare...
Kestas