Are the differences between college and professional basketball so great that the best coach in the college game can be the worst coach in the NBA? That would be a hell of a question for Rick Pitino.
The man who restored Kentucky from probation to the national championship failed completely with the Boston Celtics, who are no better off than they were four years ago. Pitino resigned as president and head coach of the Celtics earlier this week, prompting speculation about his future and reflection on his coaching style.
Pitino's ledger cuts and dries the matter clearly. As a college coach, he is 352-124 with 14 winning seasons, no losing seasons and four Final Fours in 15 years. As an NBA coach, he is 192-220 with five losing seasons in six years. Two Pitino characteristics might be called for explanation, as the same traits that could work in college could also flop in the NBA.
First is a matter of personal style. In the unique environment of Lexington, Ky., Pitino could seize total control with virtually no criticism or opposition so long as he won. In the NBA, though, the coach's position is never enough to establish authority, which comes from hard-earned credibility with the players and others around the team.
It proved impossible for Pitino with the Celtics, where he encountered a less adoring media and players with minds of their own. Even given institutional control, Pitino didn't thrive in Boston because, unfortunately for him, no NBA coach has total control. The most for which he can hope is cooperation, which, evidently, Pitino didn't inspire.
As his Kentucky and Boston days show, Pitino isn't above the occasional fib as motivational technique and tactical ploy. For example, Pitino threatened in November to quit if he didn't see improvement and later said the remarks were intended to jump-start the team. Gambits of this sort might work with college kids, but they lack force with adults who have been around the block and see straight through these paper-thin manipulations.
Second is a matter of basketball doctrine. With his athletes at UK and other colleges, Pitino could run full-court pressure for every minute of every 40-minute game, about 35 per season. It's quite a different matter to press for an entire NBA season, during which a championship team puts in 48 minutes about 100 times per year.
Throughout these past couple of months, Pitino kept saying he'd leave the Celtics if he didn't see better defense. Then he said, from time to time, that he saw effort, even if the results were lacking. Remarkably, though, he apparently didn't see this state of affairs as evidence that either his defense wasn't suited to his personnel or to the NBA in general. If he did, his adjustments were insufficient. Even the worst teams in the league tore through the Boston press for easy shots and high shooting percentages.
When Pitino left Kentucky for the Celtics in 1997, he was at the top of the college game and improving every day. It's a foregone conclusion he will return to the college game, if only because his reputation as an NBA coach and talent judge is tattered at the moment.
Some speculation even returns Pitino to the Tristate. Bob Huggins is frequently linked to NBA openings, Mike Davis is an interim coach at Indiana, Denny Crum is on his last legs at Louisville and the bluegrass beneath Tubby Smith's feet isn't as firm as it used to be. It's unclear if any of these scenarios would be attractive to Pitino.
Nevada-Las Vegas offers money, glitz, glam and an opening, so it suits Pitino. But the most intriguing possibility is St. John's, where Mike Jarvis is often mentioned with NBA openings. Pitino is a New Yorker and a college coach at heart. St. John's is the big-time college basketball team in New York City. And Pitino has the time and money to wait.
Like democracy itself, the beauty and beastliness of the Internet lies in its populism. Just as it's well known that fewer and fewer big media companies are eating more and more smaller ones, the Internet gives voice to anyone with a little HTML knowledge and about 20 bucks per month to share a Web server.
No one knows exactly how many Web sites are out there, but it's in the millions. Inevitably, the result is millions of crackpots playing at journalism and spreading groundless gossip taken as fact by a gullible audience. Worse, some of these sites might report the truth.
It's the bane of major college athletic programs that fans can share information so easily and publicly. Internet gossip has been known to make or break various recruiting efforts, and nothing makes a football coach wince quite like opening practice for the public only to see the details reported on a fan Web site.
While the questionable credibility of Internet information might one day restore legitimate journalism to good repute, the responsible Web venture faces a more daunting problem: visibility. To stand out in the crowd of Web sites and win a share of the traffic is a serious challenge, which often is addressed through expensive marketing campaigns. If you're lucky, someone else will do the marketing for you, and what marketing operation is better at what it does than NFL Properties?
Until late last week, mikebrownsucks.com was just another face in the crowd inspired by another obvious mission and sentiment. That was before NFL Properties decided to muscle the site with a cease and desist letter.
The ensuing curiosity compelled a visit to the site, which is an extraordinary document. The site bills itself as a vehicle for the enraged fan, and it is all of that. It not only documents the rage of Bengals fans, but also documents the causes of that rage, which aren't limited to the team's incompetence.
As the site's name suggests, some of the writings are biting and rude, which doesn't in the least weaken their justification by protracted frustration. Other writings are commendably measured, recognizing the Bengals are such a flop that they can be scalded with reason and sincerity.
One such writing purports to be a letter written by a prominent Cincinnati businessman to Jeff Berding, the Bengals' director of community affairs. If the anonymity of the writer raises one eyebrow, the contents will raise the other. In the letter, the businessman says his "investment" in the Bengals has returned ridicule within and outside his company, which faces about $750,000 in agreements to purchase Bengals tickets over the next 10 years.
After describing in painful detail episode after episode of the Bengals, in their ineptitude, selling him down the river as a businessman, a customer and a citizen of the community, it comes to light that the writer is responding to a bid by the Bengals to squeeze him for more ticket purchases. Not surprisingly, the writer declines. It's worth reading the letter just to try to guess who the businessman might be.
The Bengals' cynicism is exceeded only by that of the NFL, which is trying to bully mikebrownsucks.com out of its prerogative to free expression. The league demanded that the site take down its link to the Bengals' official site, even though such linking, which is common Internet practice, served the team's interest by driving eyeballs away from mikebrownsucks.com. The league also demanded a full accounting of mikebrownsucks.com merchandizing and the removal of the site's Fraidy Cat logo, a legitimate parody of the Bengals' logo and an appropriate commentary on the franchise's sorry state.
Not only are the NFL's actions toward the site petty, but it's in utterly poor taste for the league to impose itself on the First Amendment. Individual liberties, particularly concerning comment on public figures and affairs, are well worth preserving at the expense of the NFL's delusions.
It's hard to imagine the NFL's demands would hold up in court. It's easy, therefore, to imagine that the NFL believes it can circumvent the law simply with the threat of expensive litigation against a small operator.
The site appeals for pro bono legal work in response to the NFL's aggression. It is to be hoped that some set of attorneys truly interested in liberty will step forward and put the NFL in its place.
Ordinarily, the NFL's conference semifinal round is the best weekend of football all year. So much for that. The games of the past weekend were dogs -- none were close, back-and-forth or entertaining.
Between the two teams that won last Sunday's games, the Baltimore Ravens and New York Giants, the offenses scored one touchdown. And that's not so bad, for it demonstrates that defense and special teams are undervalued. What is bad is that three of the four remaining teams really aren't very good because they're so incomplete. The Giants and Ravens have no offense, and the Minnesota Vikings have no defense. The most complete team remaining is the Oakland Raiders, which makes them the clear favorite in this corner to win the Super Bowl.
The Vikings, who beat the New Orleans Saints last Saturday, will play outdoors for the first time since Thanksgiving. They probably would rather be going to Oakland just because of that, but they're instead headed to New York.
It was once the Vikings' mystique that they were the most bruising cold weather force in the game. The former coach, Bud Grant, didn't allow heaters on the sideline, no matter how far the thermometer dropped below zero. The Vikings went to four Super Bowls that way. Since moving to the Metrodome in 1982, the Vikes have become a pampered housecat of a football team with no Super Bowl appearances. In honor of the old mystique, pick the Giants in the cold this Sunday.
Going back to the 1970s, the Raiders and the football team at the University of Oklahoma were definitive of the game as rabble-rousing. But the Raiders moved to Los Angeles and went Hollywood, while the Sooners went totally outlaw and were slow to recover from subsequent NCAA sanctions.
Oklahoma returned to the national championship last week, and now the Raiders, back in Oakland, are also back in the Super Bowl if they beat Baltimore this Sunday. Each operation has regained a bit of that swash-buckling swagger. It's good to have them back.
