In the final hours of a coaching search that stretched to two months, after Petrie rebuffed Brown and the Maloofs remained torn between Shaw and Theus, Petrie broke the tie partly because of Pitino. Because of Pitino's endorsement. During several lengthy conversations, the Louisville coach -- one of the few to succeed at both the pro and college level, by the way -- related his own initial reservations about hiring Theus as an assistant, then spoke of a very different reality.
Rick Pitino's NBA coaching record, courtesy of basketball-reference.com:
Reg Season Playoffs
Season Tm Lg W L Win% W L Win%
+-----------------+-----+----+-----+----+---+-----+
1987-88 NYK NBA 38 44 .463 1 3 .250
1988-89 NYK NBA 52 30 .634 5 4 .556
1997-98 BOS NBA 36 46 .439
1998-99 BOS NBA 19 31 .380
1999-00 BOS NBA 35 47 .427
2000-01 BOS NBA 12 22 .353
+-----------------+-----+----+-----+----+---+-----+
6 Seasons 192 220 .466 6 7 .462
That's a below-.500 record with five losing seasons out of six. Anyone define Pitino's NBA career as successful? Anyone?
I don't mean to nitpick, I really don't. But things like this -- which spring up often with this particular writer -- are troublesome. How many casual basketball fans in Sacramento wouldn't know better? Voisin and Co. are supposed to be experts, authority figures on basketball. And they call Rick Pitino's NBA coaching career a success.
How are we supposed to take the rest of her column (which is quite good, actually) seriously after this passage? And how in the world did the editors miss this?
It's a shame. Voisin is obviously a talented writer, but she seems a bit out of the loop when it comes to the NBA. In a one-paper town, that's not good.