Jalen Duren number one 2022 hoops player in the country receiving several crystal balls to Memphis today
Decision is tonight. I’m thinking Penny needs a new nickname…like Benjamin, because it sure as hell ain’t his coaching that keeps landing these five stars.
Well, with NIL - the cash is now out in the open (mostly).
Not gonna change the way some of these schools operate.
BAU.
Every school can offer NIL to these kids. Kids of his skill set are gonna get paid for however long they are in school, wherever they go to school. This kid is getting paid really well if he’s going to Memphis over UK and the G League.
I think there's a misconception that since NIL exists that teams aren't paying players under the table anymore and that's just plain not true. Memphis' NIL potential is way overblown by their fans and Penny doesn't develop players or win games so there's really only one likely $cenario
That’s what I’m trying to drive at but everyone seems to want to put these things under the NIL umbrella now. He’s been landing 5 stars since he got there and hasn’t done shit with it. Doesn’t even compute why Duren would want to go there except the money offer must have been much higher.
He probably was cheating up to now. I don't think there's much question about that.
It's just that what he was doing before is probably legal now. Dirty programs rarely actually paid players directly, they outsourced it through third parties. Now those third parties can claim to be entering business deals with these guys.
They have no need to pay them under the table,. You can easily get them money without resorting to the ol' McDonald's bag full of cash now. Local companies can pay them thousands in "appearance fees" like the A&M football players are getting.
In his case, Penny can use his connections at Nike and elsewhere to get him hooked up.
Correct me if I am wrong but NIL deals = taxable income. Bags of cash likely go unnoticed.
Bingo. THIS is the major distinction. While neither violates NCAA’s new rules of “I guess just do whatever,” the network of back channel payments is still federally illegal because the money flows through a non-profit or is just handed in bags of cash and neither side is paying taxes. I would think it’s pretty easy to recruit against that by telling a kid look, give us a number and we will see what we can do with endorsement deals, but for your sake, don’t take an illegal handoff when you can now afford to do it legally..
I heard he legit gave the kid a new mercedes
If that’s all it took then we are doing a shitty job. And by we I mean all of you.
Are cars/houses/jobs for family acceptable forms of payment thru NIL now or is it just cash?
August 6th, 2021 at 10:02 PM ^
"Car Dealer" tells him that he can come to the dealership and get any car off the lot he wants and all he has to do is make sure to give his dealership a shout-out on social media. Booster is either a dealer or pays the dealer for the car. As a bonus, here's 100k cash for allowing us to use your name and video in our advertising.
You sound surprised.
Emoni Bates also trending to Memphis on the social media, although he probably goes G League. regardless Memphis is pretty loaded heading into 2021-2022.
Memphis is pretty loaded heading into 2021-2022
And just like always, Penny will do jack shit with all that talent
He's only been there three years, and those are his first three years coaching above high school. I wouldn't write him off just yet.
User name checks out.
To be fair to Penny, James Wiseman stopped playing for 2019-20 Memphis after 3 games. With Wiseman, that Memphis team probably makes the NCAAT but the NCAAT was cancelled because of COVID.
But as others have pointed out, Memphis doesn't play in a loaded conference. Memphis has more than every team including Kelvin Sampson's Houston. But whereas Sampson strikes me as a heckuva coach (especially on defense), Hardaway seems average at best so far given the lackluster results with superior talent.
Don't hate on the kid for being a Marc Cohn fan.
+1 and I hate myself for getting that reference
Now Anfernee coaches roundball
Every Friday at the Forum
And they brought me down to see him
And they asked me if I would
Take a strongass offer
With no auditors in sight
He said
"Tell me are you a Tiger, child?"
And I said "Man, I am tonight!"
This needs more upvotes.
Damit, now it’s in my head
WHEN I WAS DRIBBLIN' IN MEMPHIS
WAS SKY-WALKIN’ WITH MY FEET TEN FEET OFF THE COURT
Please don’t do this.
Hopefully he takes Bates with him.
I mean Penny is 32-19 in three seasons and two NIT births (prob been 3 if not for the covid cancellation). If that doesn’t scream success I don’t know what does.
It would if he wasn't recruiting at such a high level. If these were just 3/4 star kids that would be great. He's getting high 4 star recruits with some 5 stars sprinkled in though so he should be doing much better. Making the tournament is the bare minimum with that level of talent, not the NIT.
Tommy Amaker had a more impressive record with far less. Penny=overrated cheater
Not to mention the conference Memphis is in isn't exactly a national powerhouse - I guess I am surprised how many kids with this type of potential are attracted to a program like that.
Can’t believe people think this post is anything but sarcasm.
I know right
I got the joke about money, and I liked it.
Looks like it's time for Warde to reach out and shake down all the rich alumni to cough up money for a new "basketball talent enhancement" fund. Heck, I may even kick in some myself.
FedEx+NIL=JD sponsored by FedEx
Is this where we say "Send it in JD" in our best Bill Raftery voice?
Nothing says March Madness more than Raftery screaming “Onions!!”
Probably going to be joined by Emoni Bates, which would be just fine with me. Keep him out of Sparty's clutches and doing his one-and-done year at a program nobody cares about.
Psssssst, nobody cares about MSU either.
G-League is going to have to raise their base salary offers now with NIL if they expect to get some of these 5* players
Butch McRae knows what it takes to land top recruits. Thats all I'm saying.
Are people actually surprised that Penny is recruiting well? That's literally why he was hired by Memphis. Ignoring any NIL stuff or saltiness about "paying players", this is the area Penny was always expected to excel. And for a lot of the same reasons that Juwan is such an amazing recruiter. They're both young, charismatic, black, former NBA stars, coaching at their alma maters and had pre-existing relationships with recruits/the recruiting trail (with Juwan it was his sons, with Penny it was his son and being a High School coach).
Now obviously Juwan is a much better coach than Penny. But in case it isn't obvious already, most high level recruits don't care about coaching. They're mainly concerned with going somewhere they'd like for a year, knowing that no matter what they'll probably still be a lottery pick. Especially guys as highly rated as Duren and Bates. Hence Ben Simmons going to LSU, Markelle Fultz going to Washington, Cade going to Ok. State, etc. Hell, Juwan landed a 5 star in Isaiah Todd before even coaching a game at Michigan. And now with NIL making it easy to get paid wherever you go, that makes Penny's job that much easier.
Also apparently it's fun to shit on Penny as a coach, but he's actually not a bad coach. Once again, not close to Juwan, and his offenses have been bad, but he also took over a program that hadn't made the NCAA tournament, or postseason in general, since 2014. Whereas Juwan took over a team in the title game two years before he got there. In year one Penny lead Memphis to a ~100 spot jump on Torvik and the NIT. Year two was a disappointment but the #1 recruit also played less than 70 minutes for him that year. And last year was a top 25 Torvik finish, NIT title, and he was a 2 point or 3 point loss against Houston away from probably making the tournament.
Memphis is already projected to be #11 on Torvik for next year, without Bates or Duren. If Penny can't win with either of them, then yeah he probably sucks as a coach. But there's a very real chance Memphis is an awesome team next year. So maybe wait until after next year to talk about how "wild" it is that a coach hired to recruit at an elite level is doing so, and how he "must be paying players."
Ok, so yeah. If you are going to bring evidence and context to this hot-take conversation then well...that just isn't fair. Stop it.
Memphis hired Larry Brown as assistant coach so they have a head coach that had some success in the NBA as a player and an assistant coach who had success in the NBA as a coach. How is it surprising to anyone that kids are looking at Memphis?
Personally, I'd much rather see kids go to Memphis than to a team Michigan would face before March.
I don't follow any basketball except for a few game threads here so thanks for the informative post
Well put Bambi, very analytic and on spot. This will be Penny's make or break time and he will be judged accordingly.
Anything that Hardaway had to worry about previously with regards to paying players is now completely out the window with NIL. The only thing that's going to do him in at this point is if he can't produce a good on-court product.