Kentucky: John Calipari Gambled With His Own Credibility

Nobody has matched John Calipari’s ability to send players to the NBA since his arrival to Kentucky.

Nobody.

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Calipari has had 18 players selected in the NBA Draft since 2010, his first full season as head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats.

However, there’s a bit of a stigma that comes with players that are selected out of Kentucky. With players coming from a prestigious program and a winning program, NBA teams covet Kentucky players more than any other collegiate program in the country.

Apr 4, 2015; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Kentucky Wildcats forward Karl-Anthony Towns (12) and Dakari Johnson (44) sit on the bench following their loss to the Wisconsin Badgers 71-64 in the 2015 NCAA Men’s Division I Championship semi-final game at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports /

Look at players like Anthony Davis, the continuing to progress Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Enes Kanter and say that Kentucky doesn’t produce quality talent.

You can’t? Well, that’s exactly what Kentucky and Calipari wants you to think.

Kentucky has sent more players to the NBA since he got to Lexington. To be exact: 18 players, as mentioned earlier. There’s no college program that’s come close to matching that number. Why? Because nobody recruits like Calipari.

It’s the double-edged sword that has come along with Calipari over the past. It’s far too early to call it for most of these players drafted to the NBA, but it’s also a little late to call them blunders.

For every Anthony Davis there’s a Daniel Orton floundering in the NBA’s developmental system or overseas that left far too early under Cal’s leadership at Kentucky.

Cal isn’t to be blamed for this, however, according to him. In his latest book “Players First: Coaching From The Inside Out“, Cal says specifically that he hates the one-and-done rule, that he wishes he had more time with most of his players to get them fully ready for the grind of the NBA, but that’s not the system that’s in place.

He also goes on to say:

"All that I would require is that the NBA come together with the players’ association and agree that no players comes into the league until at least two years after his high school class has graduate — or, at the very least, change the incentives so that the players are strongly encouraged to stay. (Right now we do the opposite.)"

Of course, because of the current landscape, he has no choice but to try to put together the best roster he can possibly get. It’s not his fault that he has to do what he does, but it also limits his ability.

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This offseason, Cal missed out on a number of top recruits, including Brandon Ingram, who chose Duke, the reigning national champions, over the Wildcats.

Why is this?

In actuality, it probably has nothing to do with the college success — four Final Fours in the last five years — but everything to do with the NBA.

Though Kentucky has sent the most players to the NBA over the last half decade, it hasn’t exactly gotten star quality from those players.

Aside from Davis, the Wildcats have zero All-Stars and zero All-NBA players to account for. Of course, five years is a pretty short amount of time to account for, especially considering his last two high draft picks played one game in their rookie seasons combined, but it’s still something to consider.

Apr 4, 2015; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Kentucky Wildcats players Aaron Harrison (2) , Trey Lyles (41) and Trey Lyles (41) celebrate after a basket against the Wisconsin Badgers in the second half of the 2015 NCAA Men’s Division I Championship semi-final game at Lucas Oil Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports /

With more and more incoming freshmen being told that they could be in the NBA right away despite the rules, players are choosing their best route to go to the NBA quickly, which is where Calipari comes in. He has a great record of getting players to the NBA but not a great record of having players succeed at the next level early.

That’s where the 2014-15 season comes in.

With about 12 players that could be starters in the rotation and only 40 minutes per game to play with, Cal had to with it the only way he could: by installing two five-man rotations and going from there.

This resulted in the platoon system, which resulted in 10 players averaging 10 minutes or more and eight players averaging more than 20 minutes per game. This system was thrown off a bit by Alex Poythress suffering a season-injury prior to the Dec. 12 showdown with North Carolina.

In total, Kentucky played about nine players on a regular basis, with the players getting only nearly two-thirds the minutes regular players would play in normal settings, taking away plenty of opportunity for players to showcase their skills. However, it also helped the Wildcats succeed as a team.

Kentucky won 38 straight games to open the season for a reason. Teams that are accustomed to preparing for a maximum of seven players now had to account for an extra two or three, which threw them off. Add those extra players to the size the Wildcats had compared to the rest of the season and you have a mixture of disaster, which is exactly what Kentucky banked on.

Now that we’re in the 2015 NBA Draft process, those minutes and that little time on the floor will, and should be, exposed. Though it definitely helped Kentucky’s prospects on the court during their near undefeated run to the title, it certainly hurt those players’ draft prospects, despite what Calipari may say .

Even though player such as Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, Trey Lyles and Devin Booker are seen as surefire first-round/lottery picks, there’s still a lot of questions surrounding these players, though it’s also helped them because of these small sample sizes.

Sample sizes are everything to draft protocol. If they have a large sample size, then there’s more to go over. A small sample size gives scouts less ability to dissect game play, which is the most important part, despite what the hype around team workouts may say.

For a player like Cauley-Stein, who has three years of film to go through, you’ve proven your skills have advanced for three years and can pinpoint moments in your game that are most applicable to be dissected.

For a player like Towns or Booker, you can say, “Oh, yeah, that play I look good. Look at that.” and shine through individual workouts without so much as a second thought since you have “Kentucky” next to your name.

Booker, Lyles and Towns have had their stock skyrocket because of that limited play. All played the same amount the time even though one was a consistent starter (Towns, 21.1 minutes/game) and one being considered the sixth man (Booker, 21.5 minutes/game) there’s not a whole lot to separate the two despite what you may hear closer to the draft.

There’s nothing to separate Towns from Booker and Booker from Lyeles other than from film and nothing more. If you look at all three players on film, though, you won’t see much other than UPSIDE, which is the label you can attach to just about every single player projected to go in the top 25 picks.

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UPSIDE is exactly what has gotten the NBA to this point — expected more from extremely young players than they can produce at a young age. It’s something that has put so much pressure on young players that some have crumbled before our eyes ( i.e. Michael Beasley, Hasheem Thabeet) that we can’t really rely on them.

With so much expectation on these young players anyway, this platoon system has given these incoming Kentucky players so much pressure that there’s no possible way all of them can fulfill them. Players such as Andrew Harrison, Aaron Harrison, Dakari Johnson and, yes, Booker, are expected to be great even though they haven’t exactly proven to be more than OK role players at the NBA level.

So while we look at Calipari’s players as almost surefire prospects in the draft, remember that those in the 2015 NBA Draft have very small sample sizes going forward.

Let’s not oversee Kentucky players for more than what they are: prospects that have been handcuffed by the platoon system that Calipari was forced to use, not someone better than what we’ve seen.

Though Calipari’s system worked last season for his own prospects, it has helped but also hurt his players. It’s an interesting dilemma and one that we haven’t seen before in the college game, but one we could definitely see in the future.

Next: Scouting Report: Justise Winslow

Kentucky Basketball: John Calipari Gambled With His Own Credibility

By Nathan Giese | Jun 18, 2015

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