2025 Recruiting: Meleek Thomas is set to begin his official visit to UConn and Dan Hurley today (Merged Threads)

[awy]

cal is just selling prospects on how playing on the bench and in a terrible offense can advance their career by making their nba production look better relative to draft position.

 

[REB1094]

Coincidence?

…or not?

 

[TheHorde]

cal is just selling prospects on how playing on the bench and in a terrible offense can advance their career by making their nba production look better relative to draft position.

Cal takes 5 star McDonald’s All Americans and puts them in the NBA draft and the lottery. Okay. But would they have been in the same spot if they played elsewhere? Clingan was the 50th or so ranked recruit in his class and is in the conversation to go 1st overall. Castle was around roughly the 9th or 12th best recruit in his class and should go in the top half of the lottery. Hawkins was not a top 20 recruit in his class as I recall but was a lottery pick. Who develops players better?

 

[QuickDraw]

Coincidence?

…or not?

I think not.
I've had a good feeling about this kid for a while now & this just makes it stronger.

 

[HuskyWarrior611]

I don’t care how we want to spin it people he produces and he gets to show kids all the superstars in the NBA who played for him and how much his guys make even when they don’t become superstars.

Let’s just go all the way in on they’ll never actually win anything while playing there

 

[aceboon]

That is all true, and it is a great sales pitch. When you bring in five 5* guys a year you are going to have NBA success. And Cal is a very good coach. Not the best but very good. Recruiting at Arkansas won't be as easy as KY.

It will be very easy, Eric Mussleman recruited multiple one and done/McDAA to Arkansas, Cal will do the same and much more. Kentucky's recruiting didn't look like that before Calipari and prior to him leaving Memphis he already had the #1 recruiting class lined up.

 

[temery]

Cal takes 5 star McDonald’s All Americans and puts them in the NBA draft and the lottery. Okay. But would they have been in the same spot if they played elsewhere? Clingan was the 50th or so ranked recruit in his class and is in the conversation to go 1st overall. Castle was around roughly the 9th or 12th best recruit in his class and should go in the top half of the lottery. Hawkins was not a top 20 recruit in his class as I recall but was a lottery pick. Who develops players better?

Calipari's only successful season as a coach was 1996. Camby was bought and pd for, but the rest of the players played far better than they did when recruited.

Every other year he was little more than a used car salesman who more often than not sold at a discount.

 

[TheHorde]

Calipari's only successful season as a coach was 1996. Camby was bought and pd for, but the rest of the players played far better than they did when recruited.

Every other year he was little more than a used car salesman who more often than not sold at a discount.

Really well said. He is a used car salesman and I cannot stand white knighting for him on the BY.

 

[tuvent08]

One of the most amusing plot lines of this era has been watching the Calipari model flounder. His huge competitive advantage -- a willingness to purchase five-star players due to his constitutional shamelessness and amorality -- has been wiped away. It's great.

 

[TheHorde]

One of the most amusing plot lines of this era has been watching the Calipari model flounder. His huge competitive advantage -- a willingness to purchase five-star players due to his constitutional shamelessness and amorality -- has been wiped away. It's great.

His employer UK pushed him to the exit and wanted Hurley as their top choice. That speaks volumes.

 

[ucp990411]

That is all true, and it is a great sales pitch. When you bring in five 5* guys a year you are going to have NBA success. And Cal is a very good coach. Not the best but very good. Recruiting at Arkansas won't be as easy as KY.

You really think Calipari is a very good coach? Don’t you think with the talent he gets every year he should do better? And now he only wants 8 or 9 scholarship players. Seems asinine to me. Injuries happen. Foul trouble, players underperforming. He will wear out his welcome at Arkansas quickly.

 

[runner11]

It’s also funny that Calipari is now disavowing the freshman only model, leaving UK fans to pull out their hair.

 

[UC0NN]

You really think Calipari is a very good coach? Don’t you think with the talent he gets every year he should do better? And now he only wants 8 or 9 scholarship players. Seems asinine to me. Injuries happen. Foul trouble, players underperforming. He will wear out his welcome at Arkansas quickly.

Sure he is a very good coach. But he has a very long track record and has won everywhere including UMass and Memphis. Sure he has underperformed lately. And coach K has underperformed at times too with all the great recruits he gets.

 

[TheHorde]

It’s also funny that Calipari is now disavowing the freshman only model, leaving UK fans to pull out their hair.

I’m sure he is still capable of “getting” a top 5 recruit into the lottery lol.

 

[awy]

cal will play dj wagner ahead of reed and then boast about reed getting drafted despite of the malpractice.

 

[bendm]

cal will play dj wagner ahead of reed and then boast about reed getting drafted despite of the malpractice.

same with him playing edwards ahead of dillingham

 

[MDHuskFan]

FWIW, Cal’s recent success of getting kids guaranteed into the lottery is WAY down from some of those older classes. Some of the shine has to be off him. He’s had quite a few recent high ranked kids with lotto goals that fell way flat (Livingston, Whitney, Justin Edwards, Wagner to name a few)

Meanwhile Dan has shown that you can sacrifice to win, show what kind of player and competitor you are while still improving your draft stock.

 

[HuskyWarrior611]

FWIW, Cal’s recent success of getting kids guaranteed into the lottery is WAY down from some of those older classes. Some of the shine has to be off him. He’s had quite a few recent high ranked kids with lotto goals that fell way flat (Livingston, Whitney, Justin Edwards, Wagner to name a few)

Meanwhile Dan has shown that you can sacrifice to win, show what kind of player and competitor you are while still improving your draft stock.

This is very true. Will say though even in these last couple of draft classes the guys who do get picked seem to end up knowing how to carve out a role.

2023 draft Carson Wallace was on the All-Rookie team for the #1 seed in the West.

2022 draft Shaedon Sharpe is one of the better young players for the Trailblazers

2021 draft Isaiah Jackson has carved out a good role on the Pacers

Those guys are in line to have a solid role in the league for a while.

Right now Dan has 2/3 parts of the puzzle as far as winning and getting guys drafted high. The next will be having those guys find success in the league. Which is probably more of a when rather than if with guys like Castle and Clingan going in.

In the meantime he’s done a great job leveraging the fact he’s getting these guys drafted so high.

 

[tuvent08]

I’m sure he is still capable of “getting” a top 5 recruit into the lottery lol.

This aspect to his snake oil pitch has always been the most galling to me. "I change lives and produce NBA players." Buddy, I could coach these guys for a year to NBA success with no value add whatsoever.

edit: It's like if JC puffed himself up every five minutes for "producing" Andre Drummond.

 

[UCfor3]

I don’t care how we want to spin it people he produces and he gets to show kids all the superstars in the NBA who played for him and how much his guys make even when they don’t become superstars.

Let’s just go all the way in on they’ll never actually win anything while playing there

You are not wrong but here's the thing. He has like 5 bites at the apple every year because of all the McD's all-americans he's coached. I don't know his batting average but it's basically a numbers game. How many top McD's all americans has Cal coached at Kentucky compared to schools like UConn or any other program? Duke is onlly other program that comes close in last 15 years. Of course you are going to have a bunch of guys doing well in the NBA if you have multiple top10 guys enter your program for a 7 month cup of coffee every year. Where he has produced is recruiting and World Wide Wes and Kentucky was a seductive sales pitch. Once the pipeline started and the lottery picks piled up, it basically sold itself until the losses piled up and the landscaped changed. If any decent coach can handpick multiple top 10 players every year they are going to be able to point to their NBA "success." Cal isn't special. He was just in an advatageous situation for years.

 

[TheHorde]

This aspect to his snake oil pitch has always been the most galling to me. "I change lives and produce NBA players." Buddy, I could coach these guys for a year to NBA success with no value add whatsoever.

edit: It's like if JC puffed himself up every five minutes for "producing" Andre Drummond.

GREAT example. Kudos.

 

[CL82]

Meleek reposted Nowell’s post on his story. His future point guard??

Man, Nowell does not have a freshman body does he? He looks ready to play college basketball already. Heck, he looks ready to play college football too.

 

[brihman]

The moral high ground stuff on this board gets exhausting.

I just want a wink

 

[Huskyforlife]

Not getting too excited yet… he could just be tired coming off top 100 camp and our visit. Let’s make sure he doesn’t reschedule first.

 

[karstenkibbe]