Kentucky introduced John Calipari as its new head basketball coach on Wednesday, but was he worth it?Calipari agreed to an eight-year, $31.65 million deal with Kentucky, making him the highest paid coach in college basketball. He leaves a Memphis program that he had been at for nine seasons.
To me, I see this as an insult to coaches like Mike Kryzewski, Tom Izzo, and Roy Williams, who are clearly the top three coaches in the country. These coaches are going to be paid less than Calipari, a coach who has yet to win a national championship, or even coach in a major power conference like the SEC.
Calipari's success as a coach and recruiter is undeniable. However, he fell just short of his first championship last year at Memphis, losing in the title game to Kansas.
Next year looked promising for Calipari and his Memphis squad, who potentially has one of the top recruiting classes in the country, depending on what Xavier Henry and Demarcus Cousins decide to do with the news of Calipari departing for the Bluegrass state.
It's likely that Cousins will follow Calipari to UK, but Henry's future is still up in the air.
Calipari's first recruiting job at Kentucky may not be to a high school senior, though. Jodie Meeks and Patrick Patterson have expressed interest in enterring the NBA Draft, so convincing one of the top scorers in the nation and the team's main inside presence to stick around in Lexington should be at the top of his priority list.
Posts
Agree with everything here, although not mentioning Rick Pitino as one of the top 3 coaches is borderline blasphemy.
ReplyDeleteDon't forget that UK is a public university...so there's taxpayer money going into this.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the revenue from basketball games greatly outweighs the salary of the coach, but still.
Anonymous, that's true. I failed to mention Rick Pitino. He's certainly up there without a doubt. I don't see how I forgot that.
ReplyDelete