The Rick Pitino Episode Of “Celtics City” Reconfirmed What A Truly Awful Hire He Was And The Franchise Is Lucky It Bounced Back As Quickly As It Did
First off, if you are a fan of anything “Boston” related and you’re not watching this “Celtics City” doc series from HBO Sports/Bill Simmons on Max, you are doing yourself a great disservice.
Same goes for a fan of basketball, the NBA, or just excellence in sport in general.
7 episodes in, (the eighth airs tonight at 9 Eastern), it has been nothing short of incredible.
I will save it for a wrap-up blog at the end of the series, but aside from “The Last Dance”, and Ken Burns’ 9 part Baseball doc, I can’t remember a sports documentary being this perfectly done.
Secondly, if you’ve experienced Rick Pitino coaching your team for an extended period of time, or know anything about him the man, not just the coach, than that video of him above this definitely drew a good chuckle from you.
I went into Episode 7 of “Celtics City”, (titled “Not Again”), with one irrational fear- that I might actually start to like Rick Pitino from watching it.
This documentary has been softening everybody- the man behind the whole thing, Bill Simmons himself, and even the reprehensible Howard Bryant, guys who’ve made me gag for years.
I assumed maybe Pitino would seize the golden opportunity to speak directly to the same die-hard C’s fans he tortured the souls of. I figured he’d own up to his failures, show some self-awareness, maybe even apologize.
But nope.
Instead, he doubled down. Again.
Somehow, after 25 years of despising him, this smug, self-aggrandizing vampire found a way to crank the dial even further.
Rick Pitino is, was, and forever will be an absolute piece of shit.
I grew up during the Reggie Lewis, Dee Brown, Celtics era. I fell in love with the Celtics, during arguably their only “rough patch” in their 79 year history, watching games with my dad, falling in love with the game and the legacy of a team built on toughness, pride, and loyalty.
They stunk, but they played their asses off. And somehow, anytime there was a big game against the dreaded Knicks, Pacers, or Bulls, they seemed to find another gear and rise to the challenge.
I attended my first NBA game at the new Garden with my dad to watch Pitino and Antoine Walker take on Allen Iverson and the Sixers. Something I still remember clear as day today. (Watching Iverson play in person is still one of the most awesome things I’ve ever seen in my life in person. And I’ve been lucky to see some pretty special stuff. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen somebody do so much with so little. Or ever will. The guy was the definition of a warrior. If he had played during this era, he’d be one of the biggest names in the world. If he’d been a foot taller and 50 lbs heavier, he’d probably be in the greatest ever discussion. But I digress)
I say all that to set up the fact that I never knew or experienced Celtics dominance and excellence of any sort. Sure, I knew Larry Bird was “Basketball Jesus” and the 80s Celtics were the equivalent of The Beatles in New England. I knew Red Auerbach was the closest thing to royalty we’d ever see in sports, and that the Celtics enjoyed a history and tradition so rich, it transcended sports alone. It was woven into the fabric of the city, state, and entire New England region. And they did this over 3-4 decades.
Rick Pitino came in and took a dump on all of it.
Let’s start with the most unforgivable move of his entire Boston tenure. Not the trades (we’ll get there), not the rants, not the suit collection that looked like it was stolen from the villain in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”.
He legitimately demoted Red Auerbach.
The man came in, and stripped Red Fucking Auerbach of power, moved his office downstairs like he was banishing a janitor, and named himself President of Basketball Operations.
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To put it in context, that would be like Barstool being bought by new owners, hiring Clay Travis, putting him in charge, and him naming himself company president, demoting Portnoy to the third floor of the NYC office and taking his for himself.
That moment alone should’ve gotten him deported.
But it didn’t stop there. Because Pitino treated the Celtics like a personal rehab project for his ego. And Celtics City should’ve been his moment to come clean, to admit he blew it. Instead? He used the entire documentary as one long therapy session about how he was the victim. “Oh, the media was mean. The fans were too demanding. The players didn’t fit my system.”
No, Rick. You didn’t fit any system.
You were a college coach with a God complex, thinking you could run full-court presses on NBA veterans like you were still at Rupp Arena.
You got outcoached, outclassed, and outed as a fraud.
I forgot, (somehow), but this man really tried to press NBA players for 48 minutes over 82 games like it was still the Big East Tournament.
You can’t run a college system in the pros. For one, whipping players like they’re race horses, running them into the ground doesn’t work when you haven’t gained anybody’s respect, and you don’t have scholarships and keys to their future to hold over their heads.
Especially when your plan B is…well, you didn’t have a plan B. Because the entire reason you took the job was for Tim Duncan, and when that didn’t happen, it became roster musical chairs.
Speaking of which, let’s talk roster moves.
The Dee Brown situation?
Flat out disgusting.
A franchise pillar, fan favorite, all-around good dude.
How’d Rick let him know he was traded?
A dear-John note under his hotel room door.
No joke.
That’s some mob-level cowardice.
Not a call. Not a meeting. A note.
Like Pitino was breaking up with a one-night stand at 3 a.m. on hotel stationery.
Then there’s the whole Chauncey Billups debacle.
How do you draft a guy third overall, let him play 51 games, and then ship him out?
He still hasn’t explained that one. And avoiding doing so again in this doc.
Billups went on to be a Finals MVP. And a fucking Hall-of-Famer.
Pitino was busy running the Celtics like it was a fantasy camp for washed-up college players and future Subway franchise owners.
Speaking of Subway sandwich artists, let’s not forget about Travis Knight.
Pitino paid him like he was Shaq’s taller twin.
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The only thing Knight dominated was the bench. Pitino’s front office instincts made Billy King look like Red Auerbach.
Sure, he drafted Paul Pierce. Even a broken clock is right once a day or however it goes.
But that was more so the other 9 teams picking ahead Boston fucking up and passing on The Truth and him falling to them than an eye for basketball talent and foresight. Plus, any Celtics fan who endured those years will tell you, if Pitino had stuck around, I wouldn’t rule out him trading Pierce for two bench shooters from Providence and a gently used Nautica jacket.
One thing I never knew and hadn’t heard until this doc was Rick’s penchant for body-shaming. If you thought Dave’s “fat pen” at the Barstool Awards was bad, then pull yourself up a chair.
Rick demanded the front office staff lose weight so they could “set a better example” for the athletes.
The story went that Pitino send out a mandate, complete on Celtics letterhead and all, that Celtics staffers lose weight to “set a better example” for the players.
He bragged about buying a guy two $10,000 suits after he dropped 100 pounds. Which, wow, thank you, Slim Fast Mussolini.
That’s not leadership. That’s narcissistic CEO bullshit wrapped in fake motivation and designer threads.
The cherry on top? Most would argue, his infamous rant about Bird, McHale, and Parish “not walking through that door.” A line so unhinged and bitter it should be engraved on his Celtics tombstone.
That moment said it all, even all these years later.
Rick Pitino never understood Boston.
Not the city. Not the team. Not the legacy. Not the fanbase.
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The man had no plan B. When the lottery gods denied him Tim Duncan, it all went to shit and fell apart before even getting off the ground. He spent the next few years trying to brute force his college system onto grown-ass professionals who didn’t want to be yelled at for 48 minutes by a guy who looked like a haunted department store mannequin.
There’s one moment where Pitino almost has a flicker of self-awareness.
During his Hall of Fame speech, he said, “The Celtics gave me more than I gave the Celtics.”
That’s nice. Cute even.
But then he turns right around and uses Celtics City as a platform to whine, deflect, and, my personal favorite, throw people under the bus three decades after the fact.
Who still does that?
Answer- a megalomaniac with a god complex like Rick.
I try not to “hate” a lot of people. It’s exhausting. It’s unproductive. It’s bad karma.
But for Rick Pitino, I make an exception.
He’s a bloodsucking basketball vampire who keeps coming back to college coaching like a horror movie villain that won’t die until the end credits. (And even then, there’s a post-credits scene of him lurking in the shadows, whispering about full-court pressure and tailored suits.)
At the end of the day, the Celtics might have missed out on Duncan. They might have been cursed after Reggie Lewis. But what really prolonged the darkness wasn’t bad luck. It was bad leadership. It was Rick Pitino.
And as long as I live, I will never forgive him for what he did to this franchise, to Dee Brown, to Chauncey Billups, and to the spirit of Celtics basketball.
(Sidebar - The PMT boys recently had Rick on their show, and actually got him to almost take responsibility of how bad he fucked up in Boston. Almost.)
Yahoo Sports - If Rick Pitino had one do-over for his basketball coaching career, he knows what he would do differently.
Joining the podcast Pardon My Take, the former Kentucky and Louisville men's basketball coach — now the coach at St. John’s — said he would like a second chance at one aspect of his career.
After leading Kentucky to a national title in 1996, Pitino said he would like a do-over on his decision to leave the Wildcats to pursue a coaching opportunity in the NBA with the Boston Celtics following a runner-up finish to Arizona in 1997.
"If I had to do it all over again, I’d probably never leave Kentucky," Pitino said on the podcast. "Dick Vitale, every time I speak to him, ‘If you would have stayed at Kentucky, you’d have more wins than any coach. And you think back on that.
“But I learned a lot. To coach the Boston Celtics, even if you didn’t do a great job, it’s just too much. You got Red Auerbach, you got Bill Russell … and so many greats. It was worth the experience. But if I had to do it all over again, I had a choice, I probably would have stayed in Kentucky.”
He may be a Hall of Famer in the NCAA, but in Boston? Rick Pitino is a punchline. A Chianti stain on a loud, white, Brioni suit.
He will be remembered as a virus that infected the greatest franchise in NBA history and set them back a decade.
And no, Rick, Larry Bird is still not walking through that door. But neither are you. And thank God for that.
p.s. - one thing I thought was nuts they didn't cover or bring up was how Pitino tried to mortgage the Celtics future for an older Scottie Pippen.
NBC Boston - First, Pitino attempted to trade the third and sixth picks to Gregg Popovich and the Spurs for the No. 1 selection.
"I got a call from the folks in Boston," former Celtics coach and general manager M.L. Carr told NBC Sports Boston. "The Pitino group (was) asking, 'Could we give picks to Popovich and ask him if he'd trade the first pick for a third and sixth?' I went to Popovich; he felt sorry I even had to ask.
That didn't work, so Pitino turned to Plan C.
Rumors swirled before the draft that the Celtics tried to trade their two first-round picks and a future first-rounder to the Bulls, who had just won their fifth NBA title, in a move to pair perennial All-Star Scottie Pippen and big man Luc Longley with young C's star Antoine Walker.
Pitino confirmed the rumors on draft night.
"You have maybe, arguably, a top-20 player of all time, and you get Luc Longley. So you get a center, you have Scottie Pippen on one side, Antoine Walker on the other side," Pitino said. "Our job is to bring the fans the best product as quickly as we can bring them the best team. Our fans deserve the best. I felt Scottie Pippen was one of the best players in the game, so we had a look at that.
"(The Bulls) wanted to sweeten -- three and six was not enough for them. We sweetened it a little bit, but then they wanted the whole sugarcane factory, and we could not do that."
P.p.s. - also, how do the Celtics have two guys pass away and the NBA doesn’t allow them to erase their salaries from the books and regain that cap space? I had no idea that happened. Insanity.
P.p.p.s. - again, I’ll save it for a series wrap up blog, but I cannot recommend watching this series enough. It is so well done it’s crazy. The access, the candidness, the unknown and unheard stories. And the way it’s all packaged and presented. It is PERFECT story telling. We are so incredibly lucky to have got the chance to be fans of such a well-run, successful team, it’s not even funny. And this series does a great job reminding us to appreciate that.