"The end is near."

[Jim Metz <JBMetzEA@aol.com>]

Title: "The end is near."

  Pitino seen going at season's end 
Frustration mounts for Celtics coach
By Will McDonough, Globe Staff, 11/22/2000 
Four years apparently is enough for Rick Pitino.
The Boston Celtics head coach and team president reportedly told his players after a demoralizing 24-point loss to the Philadelphia 76ers Monday night that he would leave the team at the end of this season.
Pitino is in the fourth year of a 10-year contract that is one of the most lucrative coaching deals in the history of professional sports. He would leave nearly $30 million on the table if he did indeed walk away.
A source very close to Pitino said yesterday that the coach is frustrated with his inability to get the team to perform better.
''Rick likes these players, and he thinks they like playing for him,'' said the confidant. ''But he honestly feels that someone else coaching them in the future can get more out of them than he is right now. I think his plan is to sit down with [owner] Paul Gaston after the start of the year and talk with him about the future.''
Pitino reportedly will look to go back into the college coaching ranks.
''He wants to coach,'' said the source. ''He wants to be happy. He
wants to go someplace where he has a chance to win again. It's not working here. He just feels a change might be best for everyone.''
Going into tonight's game against the Houston Rockets at the FleetCenter, the Celtics are 4-6, in fifth place in the NBA's Eastern Conference. Pitino took over as coach for the 1997-98 season; in the next three years, they went a cumulative 90-124 -- a .421 winning percentage -- and did not make the playoffs.
There were strong rumors at the end of last season that Pitino was ready to walk away. This led to a meeting with Gaston in New York, where they agreed it would be best for the team if Pitino stayed.
''Rick thinks he's coached this team as hard as it can possibly be coached, and they are just not responding,'' said the source. ''He can't get them to play the game the way he wants them to play it.
''Some nights, they listen and play the way he wants them to play. Another game, it will be just the opposite. After that game [Monday], he was really down because he thought they could get back into the game in the second half by being patient, and they just went out and threw up a bunch of 3-pointers.''
Pitino, who is from Long Island, is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, where he lettered in basketball in 1973 and '74. He began his head coaching career in 1978 at Boston University, where he went 91-51 in five years. He then coached Providence College for two years (42-23) before breaking into the NBA with the New York Knicks in 1987. He went 90-74 in two years with the Knicks, making the playoffs both seasons, before returning to the college ranks with Kentucky in 1989. He went 219-50 in eight years there, winning a national championship in 1996.
But the Boston job has not been what he expected it would be when he took it in May 1997. Before the start of this season, he had high hopes, feeling that the Celtics would make the playoffs and be set up for the future, both in terms of young talent and a salary cap situation that would allow for free agent signings.
Pitino is an emotional guy. Several times after tough losses last year, he went off at the players, the negativity of the fans, or the inability of his team to execute.
He is also the kind of man who would change his mind completely if the team takes off on a winning streak and starts to play the way he had hoped. But as of this morning, that is not the case. It has been three-plus years, and it isn't working, and for a coach who is not used to losing, the end is near.
This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 11/22/2000. 
© Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company. 


     Unchain My Heart!