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Great new Holley Article
Bravo Michael Holley!
*****
"Walker needn't be goner"
By Michael Holley, Globe Staff, 07/22/98
It seems the phone rings every four minutes in Antoine
Walker's Chicago
loft. Sometimes he answers; sometimes you have to
leave a message on a
machine where about 850 have been left before yours.
So many calls. It's
time for one of them to come from Rick Pitino.
Everybody knows that NBA teams risk a heavy fine for
talking to their
players during a lockout. Maybe with a couple of winks
and some shredded
phone records, Walker and Pitino could get away with
it.
They need to chat. And they need to do it before
producers of the Jerry
Springer show start stalking Merrimac Street, looking
for an angle. By now,
everybody knows that Walker has issues with his
Celtics boss. Everyone
should also know that Pitino isn't too happy that one
of his players, a
quarter-century younger than he, told him off via this
newspaper. But there is
a lot that the Trade Antoine lobby hasn't considered,
the least of which is
that the only team that willingly gives away its best
players is the pathetic
Florida Marlins.
What you have to realize about Walker and Pitino is
that they have known
each other for six years. They have cursed each other
before. They'll do it
again. Walker knows all Pitino's drills, so that's why
you didn't see him
hooked up to IVs, as five of his teammates were during
last season's training
camp in Newport, R.I. Remember, Pitino applauded him
for being in the
best shape on the team, and that was after he missed
Pitino's summer camp
of 1997.
It also wouldn't surprise anyone close to the coach if
he read Walker's
words last Friday, spewed a few expletives, and then
went about his day.
That's because Pitino-Walker is the tumultuous
basketball equivalent of Bill
Parcells-Drew Bledsoe, with one exception: Parcells
didn't recruit Bledsoe
when he was 16, as Pitino did with Walker. He didn't
have a broad firsthand
perspective of who Bledsoe truly was, as Pitino does
with Walker. These
men have a history together. And as serious as their
problems are, they can
be resolved.
Refreshingly, this is not about the money(although
money may be an issue
later this summer). It's not about Walker's attendance
at a two-day
''voluntary'' camp. It's not about Walker saying he's
not sure he wants to
play for Pitino again, either. This is really a tale
of communication, how it
often becomes mangled when third parties become
involved and how people
sometimes have to step back and acknowledge that their
method of
communicating isn't working.
Walker has been annoyed with Pitino for a while. It
probably started April
8, when the coach entered the Celtic locker room after
a 117-104 loss to
the Nets and told Walker - in front of the team - that
the player would never
be bigger than the coach. Walker had just scored 43
points, an
accomplishment that, at the time, Pitino said should
be ''thrown out the
window'' because of Walker's defense. But that
analysis was tame
compared to the verbal lashing Pitino gave Walker
earlier. Apparently, the
confrontation got so bad that veteran Pervis Ellison
called two of Walker's
friends the next day and asked them to see if Walker
was all right. His
answer? He was fine. Of course.
He had been cursed by Pitino before. That didn't
bother him. What he didn't
appreciate was the appearance of hypocrisy: The coach
tells his players not
to say anything negative in the media, yet he tells
the media he wasn't happy
with Walker after he carried the team on a 43-point
night? And what of
loyalty? Sure, the two men went at each other in the
locker room. But why
couldn't criticism stay there? When asked to comment
on Pitino's
throw-'em-out-the-window remarks that night, all
Walker said was, ''Hey,
that's nothing to broadcast.''
And that was the point. Broadcasting problems. It's
not Walker's style.
Think about it: During the Celtics' 15-win season of
1996-97, how many
times did you hear Walker go off to the media? How
many times did he do it
last season? He was accused of being M.L. Carr's pet
project during his
rookie season, but you never would have known from him
that he didn't
click with Carr until, maybe, January or February '97.
He overreacted to Pitino saying he was
''disappointed'' that he didn't attend
his summer camp, but the comment stung him because he
has a 4-year-old
daughter, five brothers and sisters, his mother, and
grandmother all in
Chicago. He takes care of them all and, after spending
six months in Boston
without seeing his daughter, looks forward to spending
summers with her.
We have seen accounts recently in this paper and
Sports Illustrated of NBA
fathers who have ignored their children. What about
those who actually want
to be there?
True communication for Walker and Pitino became nearly
impossible in late
June. Pitino wanted the players to attend the predraft
''Fandemonium'' at the
FleetCenter. But Walker got a call from the office of
community relations
director Wayne Levy two days before the event. Walker
already had plans
to go to Vancouver with his friend Nazr Mohammed. A
few days later, he
and other players who didn't show received a letter
signed by general
manager Chris Wallace. The letter detailed how
unprofessional the players
were for not showing up and how Pitino and owner Paul
Gaston were
disappointed in their not handling responsibility.
Pitino often says Walker is like a son to him. Why
send your son a form
letter condemning his lack of professionalism? A phone
call would have been
better. That was in late June. By that point, Walker
didn't realize that his
coach was still loyal to him, that every time he went
on television and said,
''The Celtics will sign Antoine Walker,'' he was
straddling the line of defiance
with Gaston, who has privately spoken against
big-money, long-term player
contracts.
So the eruption came. And Walker became a villain
here. Here's some
advice: Don't believe the hype. If you had seen him
coach children for free in
90-degree heat on a summer day in Chicago - looking
very much like a
6-foot-9-inch Pitino - you would know that PitinoBall
is seared into his
basketball psyche.
Now is not the time for Rick Pitino to turn into Jesse
Helms Pitino, a
basketball reactionary ready to make a trade just
because there is a rough
spot. If he is going to trade Walker, let it be
because there is a deal that will
help the team (not an Eric Williams-like yard sale
that netted two
second-round draft picks). You know what? I wouldn't
be shocked if
Walker were traded next month. I also wouldn't be
stunned to see him at
Brandeis in October on Media Day. If he leaves, his
most recent remarks
will have little to do with it.
But now it's time for Pitino to pick up the phone
first. And if he wants to
save a few pennies among the millions, there are some
long-distance carriers
with rates as low as 9 cents per minute.
This story ran on page D01 of the Boston Globe on
07/22/98.
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.