gwkrlghl

May 14th, 2014 at 9:41 PM ^

People only remember Calipari for his days at Kentucky and assume he only wins because he has great talent but he's a great coach who made both UMass and Memphis great programs - with slightly skeezy methods to get the right players. In the NBA they can just pay people to get the best players and he can still coach with the best of them (in college at least).

The Cavs would probably need to throw some serious cash at him

Ali G Bomaye

May 15th, 2014 at 9:24 AM ^

At both UMass and Memphis, he used his "slightly skeezy methods" to recruit great players like Marcus Camby and Derrick Rose who completely outclassed their mediocre conference competition.  Both schools were hit with NCAA violations either during his final year coaching or immediately after he left.

He's never shown an ability to coach up talent to a higher level of performance than expected.   In fact, last year he arguably did the opposite - despite having an amazing talent level, Kentucky's offense often looked like it just depended on isolation and garbage plays.  In the NBA, every team is on a (relatively) equal footing with regard to talent acquisition, so teams need to depend on the coach to make a difference.  I'm not convinced Calipari can do that.

samsoccer7

May 14th, 2014 at 9:49 PM ^

It would be interesting to see how much pull he'd have with free agents.  I imagine Cleveland wants to make a splash here to convince Kyrie to stick around, plus lure some big free agents in the next year or two (and no, Lebron is not going back under any circumstance).

bluesalt

May 14th, 2014 at 10:20 PM ^

The Cavs can offer him the most money, beginning with an extension this summer. And if he doesn't want the extension, he'll be a restricted free agent, wherein the Cavs will again offer him the most money, but also have the right to match any other team's lesser offer. He'd have to want out of Cleveland so bad that he'd be willing to sign a one-year qualifying offer at about 50% of what he'd otherwise be paid to be able to leave two years from now. Not happening.

LSAClassOf2000

May 14th, 2014 at 10:44 PM ^

To me, the odd thing about this is the unexpected candidness of his statement about wanting to coach LeBron if he had the opportunity. It always seems like he traditionally addresses his perpetual attachment to NBA openings with a fairly standard set of replies, so the change is intriguing, if nothing else. It still probably amounts to nothing in the end, but it is a different answer than he seems to give typically. 

Mr. Yost

May 14th, 2014 at 11:04 PM ^

/ducks

For the record, college BASKETBALL teams could absolutely beat bad NBA teams. Could they win a series? Could they make the playoffs? Hell no. But next year's UK team wouldn't go 0-82 in the NBA, especially in that weak Eastern Conference.

gte896u

May 15th, 2014 at 12:39 AM ^

the defense applied by an NBA team would make the game ufly to watch. in a CLE vs UK scenario, Kyrie Irving could approach Wilt numbers and not one single UK player would get a clean look at the basket.

WolvinLA2

May 15th, 2014 at 1:49 AM ^

Agreed. It wouldn't be close.

They just lost to UConn who had maybe one real NBA player, and certainly no NBA starters. They almost lost to us, and similarly, no one on our team would have started in the NBA this year.

I think it would be 0-82 and almost all would be blowouts.

Mr. Yost

May 17th, 2014 at 9:50 AM ^

College players can beat NBA guys one a 1 game basis...

You take some of the best college teams and they absolutely can beat NBA teams.

Not reguarly, not a 7 game series, but they wouldn't go 0-82.

Next years UK team could win a few games in the NBA (once they're March ready, not day 1 on campus).

drewz05

May 15th, 2014 at 1:45 PM ^

Your posts make it sound like you think Cleveland was the worst team in the league last year when they weren't.  Milwaukee is the team you are looking for, they were attrocious last year.

Evil Empire

May 15th, 2014 at 10:31 AM ^

It seemed to be the year of teams with the biggest assholes winning championships.  The Bulls won (take your pick of Rodman, Pippen, Jordan), the Avalanche (Claude Lemieux) won, so naturally I expected the Indians and Albert Belle to return to the World Series and improve on the previous year's performance by winning it.  Unfair.