HE’S SPURRED TO SUCCESS : Out a Year, Pitts Hopes to Make Good San Antonio’s Pick

NATIONAL CITY —  Michael Pitts, addressing a group of youngsters at a basketball camp at Sweetwater High School, was delivering a chapter on mental attitude which might have come straight from Vince Lombardi or Norman Vincent Peale.

“Desire,” Pitts said, “is the most important factor in becoming a good basketball player. It’s said that 90% is mental and only 10% is natural ability. That’s why the desire is so important.”

However, Pitts forgot to add to the success equation another quantity--luck. And 100% bad luck easily erases 90% desire and 10% ability. It was just such bad luck--an injury--that has taken Pitts from the ranks of sure-fire pro prospects to a pack-and-pray tryout with the San Antonio Spurs.

Pitts, 23, was perhaps the best high school player to come out of San Diego County since Bill Walton. During his senior year at Sweetwater in 1979, he was recruited by more than 500 schools. However, after graduating from Cal in 1984, the only comparisons drawn between Pitts and Walton involved injuries.

The 6-foot 11-inch center played only four games during his senior season for the Bears after suffering an injury to his right knee in a game against Nevada Reno. He was still drafted by the Spurs in the seventh round in 1984.

“The Spurs have been in contact with me off and on since they drafted me,” Pitts said. “I was on crutches when they drafted me, so they knew what they were getting into.”

Pitts, who sat out last year to rehabilitate his knee, will go to San Antonio’s camp July 20 with no promises.

While a senior at Sweetwater, Pitts was expected to go on and dominate in the collegiate ranks and likely have a future in the NBA. Pitts outdueled Morse’s Cliff Levingston for The Times’ County Player of the Year award in 1979. Levingston, now with the Atlanta Hawks, is already a three-year NBA veteran because he declared hardship while at Wichita State.

Pitts against Levingston was one of the top matchups in San Diego prep basketball. Pitts made the final shot of the rivalry, hitting an 18-footer over Levingston to give Sweetwater a 48-46 win in the 1979 San Diego Section semifinals.

Pitts began his Cal career as anticipated. He averaged 13.1 points and 7.3 rebounds per game during his freshman season. The good times, however, were short-lived.

He was switched from center to power forward during his sophomore season. Failure to adjust to his new roll in the offense, coupled with the start of his knee troubles, led to a disappointing season (8.8 points and 5.2 rebounds per game).

Pitts had arthroscopic knee surgery during the off-season, which led him to redshirt in 1981-82. The patience paid dividends as Pitts averaged 14.4 points and 6.1 rebounds when he returned for his junior season.

Named to the preseason All-Pacific 10 team before his senior season, he appeared to be playing his finest basketball just before injuring his knee in a game against Nevada Reno.

Still hoping to play professional basketball, Pitts was encouraged when drafted by San Antonio, especially considering his physical condition at the time.

“If I would’ve been the last one picked in the draft, I would’ve been happy,” he said. “There were players who got to play their entire senior years that were drafted in the three rounds behind me.”

Unable to play at the NBA level immediately, Pitts signed to play in Italy last season in hopes of beginning his rehabilitation. But his season in Italy lasted all of four days.

“I realized I was trying to come back too early,” he said.

Upon returning to the Berkeley area, Pitts began a self-paced year of rehabilitation.

“It’s just been a gradual thing,” he said. “I started out just shooting around. Then, I played with scrubs, and then I stepped up to the pro-am leagues.”

Pitts took another step toward the level of play he will encounter at training camp when he left the San Francisco pro-am leagues for a more competitive league in Los Angeles, which features NBA players such as Byron Scott and Reggie Theus.

Pitts, who graduated from Cal with a degree in sociology, has had job offers outside of basketball, but he is determined to give the NBA a shot.

“I know myself,” he said. “Six years from now, I’d be watching TV and I’d be wondering if that could’ve been me playing. And if I never try, I’ll never know.”

And Pitts will attend the Spurs camp without the expectations that arrived with him five years ago in Berkeley.

“I expect a lot out of myself,” Pitts said. “But I don’t think anyone else expects anything out of me, anymore.”