Sometimes even the spinniest of spinmeisters can make us guffaw out loud (GOL?) with their ridiculousness.
Louisville head coach Rick Pitino could literally have his arm up to his elbow in the cookie jar and find a way to deliver a condescending lecture on why we shouldn’t be looking in the direction of that jar in the first place. The guy is like Pooh Bear searching for the honey pot, Lucy holding the football and Wimpy asking for a hamburger all wrapped into one person – his memory capacity runs in nanofractions and he expects us to all blindly follow along. Baghdad Bob himself must have eschewed Noam Chomsky’s treatise on propaganda in favor of one of Pitino’s missives, so artfully does he dwell in alternate universes of reality.
From today’s lecture speech by Pitino at the Louisville Tip-Off Luncheon, Pitino was quoted as saying a number of things, including that he thinks his team will be very coachable this year, Edgar Sosa will become one of the best point guards in the nation, and that Louisville’s backcourt can stand up against anyone in America. All of which are possible, perhaps even plausible on certain days. But, oh, there was also this jewel:
Louisville coach Rick Pitino insists that he’s having one of the best years of his life.
Really. After a mostly embarrassing summer where Pitino spent several press conferences apologizing to his wife/kids/players/fans/employer by invoking 9/11, playing the hapless victim, fibbing about health insurance, berating the media and telling everyone to focus on the important things like basketball, he has decided that 2009 represents one of the best years of his 57-year old life. Well, let’s see about that, shall we?
Below is an enlightening chart that SI’s Luke Winn created to describe the fortunes of the Louisville program since the team was upset in the Elite Eight last March by Michigan State (coincidentally, not one of Pitino’s better coaching moments). As you can surmise, anything below the black line is a negative thing. Anything above it is positive. (h/t CNNSI) What do you guys think about Pitino’s latest claim?
Oh, we get it. Bad means good; best means worst; and so on. Like the kids used to say…
View Comments (4)
SPINTINO at it again..Wait til the trial ..He will go off the deep end..Willard in the wings when he does...
One thing is for sure. Pitino has more people living his life than is imaginable. In fact, I have to wonder if they paid this much attention to their own lives, they might not need to spout off about how dreadful things are for him. Not only does everyone have an opinion, but they cannot wait to toss it out there. Last I saw, he and his wife had a great vacation in Florida during the summer where he spoke and golfed at an event with Billy Donovan and he paid ample attention to his recruits. But, naturally, that's not what anyone cares to hear. The punishment ethic is enough to make people feel they owe him some of their fabulous advice. That the affair occurred 7 years ago has not registered even yet.
I happen to believe this may be a great year for him yet, and as well for Louisville. I guess we'll have to wait and see. In the meantime, let's all opinionate on what a monster he is, OK? That really matters!
Senore:
Rick Pitino brings this on himself. We don't go seeking it. Please, man, look at the facts. You're going to tell me that you believe him when he says this is the best year of his life? In the past year, he's seen his son leave his side to go take a coaching position somewhere else; career encouragement aside, it's never fun for any parent to know that they're going to be seeing less of their own child. He's had an extortion attempt made against him. He's been outed (or outed himself) as an adulterer...on the floor and/or table of an Italian restaurant, after-hours. I won't even get INTO the abortion-slash-health insurance stuff, here, suffice to say that he's even had the Catholic church on his back. He's had an ill-advised press conference on TV where he blew up and made a fool of himself, and he thought he was helping his cause.
But yeah, I'm sure ALL of that has been better than the year he won the title with Kentucky in 1996, or any of those other years when he helped make that program the Team of the 90s. I'm sure it's better than reviving the New York Knicks or even taking Providence or Louisville to the Final Four. Those years are nothing compared to the enjoyment of the last year, no doubt about it...
You see, this is what Rick Pitino has always done. For whatever reason, it's important to him that he always keeps you guessing, and that he appears smarter than you. It's a trick he's used during his times with the Knicks, with Kentucky, and with Louisville; when his team plays poorly against a lower-tier opponent, he'll tell you how great he thought the effort was and all the great things he saw, when the fans really want to know what the heck went wrong on that night. When his team plays fantastic, he'll single out 2-3 things and act disappointed and talk about how much his team really has to work on those things or it's going to be a disappointing year. Go back and read the piece(s) where this very blog (specifically RTMSF) absolutely DRILLS Malcolm Gladwell's David-vs-Goliath full-court-press theory, and check out the part where Pitino actually tries to make it sound like Samardo Samuels was just some worthless recruit that he turned into a player (he was in reality near the top of almost every high school prospect list). He also likes to use superlatives in abundance, i.e. "Boy, you should see this kid I've got coming in, he's got the smoothest release I've ever seen," or "This guy I've got now, he's probably the best ball handler I've ever coached."
Why does he do these things? I think it's to make it seem like you don't see what he sees, that your eyes aren't capable of his vision. And to make it seem like there's always hope, that you shouldn't lose faith in him. Now, the guy's obviously a great basketball coach, one of the best working in the game today. He's certainly a better coach than I am. And there's nothing intrinsically wrong with him putting the spin on things like I've described above...until he insults our intelligence. He can take 20 Florida vacations and play as much golf as he wants, but there's no way that you're ever going to convince me that this year is the best year of his life; that with all of his success over the previous 56 years, THIS year is the best he's ever had. No way. This is just more of the same. He simply doesn't want us to think that all of this has affected him at all. It's too important to him to appear cool and aloof, and that's what leads to silly statements like that one. He honestly thinks that Louisville fans will read that and say, "Look, see? Coach is OK! It's the best year of his life, so it can't be that bad, and that means it's gonna be all right for us, right? Right!"
Listen, we're not rooting against the man. We don't sit around here and ponder unflattering things we can say about Rick Pitino to put on this site. And we understand, if you're a U of L and/or a Pitino fan, this can't be an easy time for you. There wouldn't have been an article about Rick Pitino today until he made that statement. It insults everyone's intelligence, and we're going to call him on that every time. He did it at Kentucky, and they started calling him on it before he left. The folks in Boston saw through it REALLY quickly. And a lot of Louisville fans have been calling him on it over the past few seasons, too. Everyone knows that Rick Pitino is a great coach. But he also comes off as a salesman and a spin doctor.
One final note -- I checked with the other guys...our lives are great. Thanks for your concern. You don't have to wonder anymore.
John Stevens
RTC
John said it better than me, but to get to the heart of the matter, Pitino has lost his benefit of the doubt. That's my opinionate, and I'm sticking to it.