Earlier this month, Kentucky head coach John Calipari tried to quell the burgeoning notion that his ultra-talented Kentucky Wildcats could beat an NBA team, even one as bad as the Philadelphia 76ers (who at 0-15 on the day after Thanksgiving, were three losses shy of tying the all-time record for the worst start in league history).
KENTUCKY BETTER THAN THE SIXERS?
"“If we played ANY NBA team, we would get buried. ANY,” Calipari insisted in a tweet on November 10."
He’s probably right. As bad as the 76ers are as professionals right now, there’s still a significant difference between college and NBA basketball, even when comparing the seemingly most and least talented teams at each of those respective levels.
But don’t feel sorry for Calipari.
Only one NBA team has as many as the nine McDonald’s All-Americans Kentucky has this year.
HURT BY SUPPRESSED STATS?
A week after his aforementioned tweet, Calipari took to Twitter again to say:
"“We don’t have subs, we have reinforcements. #2platoons1team.”"
While that’s great for Kentucky basketball and makes life easy on Calipari, it’s far from the best situation to showcase some of his All-Americans who are eventually seeking to play for a club like the 76ers or another NBA lottery-bound team that might draft them.
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The Wildcats’ overabundance of talent has created the ultimate team, in which no one or two players are clear-cut stars far above the rest of the roster.
While that makes Kentucky an incredibly deep squad and the consensus pick to win a national title this year, it casts the spotlight on the Wildcats collectively rather than allowing particular players on the team to stand out.
Sharing minutes and production to that degree could negatively impact the draft stock of some of Kentucky’s best players, especially when there’s a fine line among so many good ones on Calipari’s crew.
As Calipari noted, he basically follows a system incorporating a hockey style line change. Five guys out, five fresh guys in, without the team losing that much, since the regular rotation is 10 deep, with five reserves who could start on many teams across the country.
- Through their first six games this season (as of Nov. 28), those 10 players have ranged from just 15.3 – 21.5 minutes per game.
- No Wildcat is scoring more than the 11.2 points per contest that guards Devin Booker and Aaron Harrison are averaging, and only center Dakari Johnson (11 points per game) is joining them in double figures in scoring.
- Johnson leads the team in rebounds, with eight per game, and only two others, forwards Karl-Anthony Towns (7.7 rebounds per game) and Willie Cauley-Stein (six rebounds per game) are pulling down at least five boards per contest.
- Guards Andrew Harrison and Tyler Ulis are tied for the team lead in assists with a modest 3.3 per game.
Contrast the above numbers with per-34-minute averages — the measure that Calipari himself says is the typical time frame for an elite Division I college player — and it’s clear how Kentucky’s embarrassment of roster riches weighs down what might otherwise be impressive statistics that would jump off the page for prospective NBA scouts:
- Booker’s scoring average would suddenly jump to 21.5 points, along with 4.5 assists and 2.9 steals per game.
- Aaron Harrison would be averaging 17.9 points.
- Forward Trey Lyles increases to 17.8 points and 9.2 rebounds.
- Andrew Harrison would be at 14.4 points and 5.5 assists.
- Cauley-Stein goes to 13.2 points, 9.5 rebounds and 2.6 blocks.
- Johnson would have a ridiculously productive 18.9 points, 13.7 rebounds and 2.9 blocks.
- And finally, Towns would produce a stat sheet-stuffing 13.9 points, 14.2 rebounds, 6.5 blocks and 3.4 assists.
OR HELPED BY INCREASED EFFICIENCY?
The adjusted per-34-minute averages are what Calipari uses to justify his recruiting ways and platoon system as relative non-factors in bringing down the potential draft resumes of his players.
He also claims his players (being fresher) will show NBA scouts more in less time, making themselves look more efficient, knowing that at the next level, efficiency is everything in establishing and maintaining good professional playing careers.
Since Kentucky’s immense depth deprives its players of more playing time they might get elsewhere, Calipari said following a summer scrimmage:
"“[They] just play harder. You get more done, you’re more efficient. So playing 20 minutes a game, everybody had their time. And I think every guy shined. I don’t think there’s one guy — no one [will] hurt themselves [draft wise].”"
Essentially, Calipari is telling us all not to simply look at Johnson’s 11 points, eight rebounds and 1.7 blocks. Instead, we should note that he put those numbers up in just 19.8 minutes per game.
And that while Booker’s 11.2 points per game don’t sound dominating, consider that his scoring average ties for the team lead in only 17.7 minutes per contest.
WHAT WILL THE SCOUTS THINK?
Calipari’s reasoning sounds convincing on the surface. But where he and some NBA scouts may part ways is in the automatic extrapolating of his players’ per-34-minute numbers.
When each of the key Wildcats are only asked to play about 15-21 minutes per game, it’s hard for scouts to judge whether the great efficiency they’re showing would hold up over increased playing time in the NBA, especially when those players aren’t playing long enough to get into foul trouble or to have opposing defenses make adjustments to slow them down in college.
Scouts would probably also have questions about conditioning, with Kentucky’s All-Americans accustomed to being featured in only a limited amount of minutes compared to the larger roles they might be asked to play in the NBA.
With most mock drafts targeting about a half-dozen current Wildcats to be taken within the first 35-40 picks of the 2015 NBA draft, chances are that NBA scouts and general managers will have seen enough of Calipari’s recruits to draft them, some of them, fairly high.
Yet the draft is also an inexact science. And Kentucky’s insanely deep platoon might not only make it rough for Calipari’s current players to get more playing time now, but later on, to get drafted as high as they might like, if at all.