"Larry Bird is not walking through that door, fans. Kevin McHale is not walking through that door, and Robert Parish is not walking through that door. And if you expect them to walk the door, they're gonna be gray and old. I wish we had 90 million under the salary cap. We wish we could buy the world. We can't."
"In his lengthy soliloquy, he circumvented any blame for the team's problems, showed off his Boston sports bona fides, and offered an accurate assessment of the Boston sports fan and media mindset at the time. What is left unsaid is that if they did walk through that door, Pitino probably would have traded them for five marginal NBA players who had played for him at Kentucky."
Rick Pitino's famous March 2000 postgame rant blamed the Celtics' poor performance on the absence of legendary players Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish, while deflecting responsibility for his own roster management failures. Pitino had renounced the rights to nine players, including Rick Fox, to sign Lakers backup Travis Knight to a seven-year, $22 million contract—a decision that exemplified poor asset management. His complaint about salary cap limitations contradicted his actual control over roster construction as team president. Pitino's record with Boston was 102-146 in three-and-a-half seasons, demonstrating the consequences of his management approach.
Read at Boston.com
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