St John's Coach Rick Pitino Recalls 'Electric' Knicks Tenure

Rick Pitino's new opportunity with the St. John's Red Storm won't be his first walk through Madison Square Garden, as he previously served as the head coach of the New York Knicks for two seasons.

One of the first marks on Rick Pitino's New York basketball bingo card came from an NBA stamp.

Pitino's latest endeavor will be head coaching duties with the St. John's Red Storm's  men's basketball program, which shares Madison Square Garden's playing surface with the New York Knicks. It's the latest Empire State hoops haven for Pitino, who played in high school at St. Dominic in Oyster Bay on Long Island before later serving as one of Jim Boeheim's first assistants at Syracuse. More recently, Pitino was at the helm of the Iona Gaels for three seasons, guiding the team to two NCAA Tournament appearances before the Red Storm came calling.

Long forgotten in a roller-coaster career is a four-season, two-term stay (1983-85/1987-89) with the New York Knicks, the latter pair as the head coach.

“It was electric,” Pitino said of his Knicks tenure to Zach Braziller of the New York Post. “The Garden was awesome, and we swept the Sixers (in the first round of the 1989 playoffs) and Mark (Jackson) and Patrick (Ewing) took the broom and made all the back pages of the papers. The guys got along great, we had great chemistry.”

Pitino's NBA affairs are mostly remembered for his disastrous tenure (1997-2001) as the Boston Celtics' boss, a time made infamous by his "Larry Bird/Kevin McHale/Robert Parish isn't walking through that door" speech during a press conference. But long before the concept of college coaching stars soured on NBA management, Pitino helped turn the Knicks franchise around and set the stage for its 1990s heyday.

After two years as an assistant under Hubie Brown (ironically following a five-season run as the head coach at Boston Univeristy), Pitino turned to more New England action as the head coach at Providence. He was welcomed back to Manhattan after he guided the Friars to the Final Four just two years removed from an 11-win campaign.

Upon Pitino's arrival, the Knicks had endured three consecutive seasons with less than 30 wins, struggling to gain traction with 1985's top pick Patrick Ewing in tow. In his first season, Pitino helped improve the Knicks' win total by 14, guided first-round choice Mark Jackson to Rookie of the Year honors, and New York was back in the postseason after a three-year absence. It kickstarted a streak of 14 consecutive postseason appearances that ran through 2001.

Though they fell to Boston in 1988's opening round, the next spring saw Pitino's Knicks enter with 52 wins and the first Atlantic Division title since 1971. As Pitino mentioned, his group swept Philadelphia (its first sweep of a series beyond best-of-three since 1969) behind the efforts of young stars like Ewing, Jackson, and Gerald Wilkins. Alas for the Knicks, a rising talent named Michael Jordan denied them a trip to the conference finals, as His Airness' Chicago Bulls downed New York in six games.

A 40-point showing from Jordan at Chicago Stadium not only ended the Pitino era ... but denied the Knicks a Larry O'Brien Trophy hoist, Pitino claims. The Knicks had swept the "Bad Boy" Detroit Pistons in four regular season meetings but could only watch as they postponed Jordan's inevitable NBA takeover before sweeping the Los Angeles Lakers in the Finals.

“The Bad Boys won the championship; we were 4-0 (against) them,” Pitino said. “If Jordan didn’t take over Game 6, I thought we could’ve won the championship." 

So why would Pitino leave such an "electric" setting, especially considering he "loved coaching" in Manhattan? The Pitino era ended due to a recurring fault of the modern New York franchise: instability.

Then-Knicks general manager Al Bianchi, hired five days before Pitino in 1987, reportedly clashed with the college coach about his vision for the franchise. Disillusioned and seeing familiar writing on the wall, Pitino left for the Kentucky Wildcats. Pitino had a gut feeling that John MacLeod, then the head coach of the Dallas Mavericks, was next in line after previously working with Bianchi in Phoenix.

“He wanted MacLeod, not me, and I sensed that,” Pitino said. “I felt, let Al hire who he wants, because ultimately if the GM and coach are not on the same page, it’s not going to work. He wanted to play a slow-down (style).”

The Lexington-bound Pitino's concerns were vindicated shortly after: his replacement, Stu Jackson, was fired only 15 games into his second season and replaced by MacLeod, whose Knicks were swept by Jordan's Bulls in the 1991 playoffs before Pat Riley arrived during the following offseason.

Pitino wound up guiding Kentucky to the 1996 national championship and continued his collegiate affairs with both the Wildcats and the University of Louisville. In the midst of several off-court scandals, Pitino has amassed 834 wins in his career, though 123 have been vacated from his time at Louisville (including a national title run in 2013). 

Another downtrodden challenge awaits Pitino at St. John's: the lauded Red Storm program did not reach the NCAA Tournament in four years under Mike Anderson and its last season beyond 21 wins came in 2000. 

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Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags

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