Trae Young Official visits

[BCSooners]

I dunno where he ends up but it would be hard to turn down UK..they do put the players in the NBA if that's only thing a 17 year is looking at.

They put the absolute best HS players in the NBA. A lot of teams could do that if they could get them. Simmons was still #1 despite bad team & coaching.

 

[soonerczech]

One would hope these kids would finally see through Cal's BS. He doesn't "put" kids in the NBA. He takes talent and squanders it and makes players draft stock fall. He has never developed 1 singular player into something amazing.

 

[hoopsaustin]

One would hope these kids would finally see through Cal's BS. He doesn't "put" kids in the NBA. He takes talent and squanders it and makes players draft stock fall. He has never developed 1 singular player into something amazing.

thank you.

top players will get more touches. more looks. therefore more actual game time development at a school not name Kentucky where all of these all stars go and coast. leading to stagnation of talent rather than stretching their skills and creating growth.

If you were a spot up shooter where you need ultra-talented players to command attention and just let you shoot... then ya, kentucky is prolly one of the best teams to go to. otherwise, no.

Plus youre playing for pond scum Cal, ask memphis or umass ect..

 

[CoachTalk]

Wish we had a way to text 85k folks on Saturday and have them start a chant of we want trae at halftime of the game.

 

[sdcloud9]

thank you.

top players will get more touches. more looks. therefore more actual game time development at a school not name Kentucky where all of these all stars go and coast. leading to stagnation of talent rather than stretching their skills and creating growth.

If you were a spot up shooter where you need ultra-talented players to command attention and just let you shoot... then ya, kentucky is prolly one of the best teams to go to. otherwise, no.

Plus youre playing for pond scum Cal, ask memphis or umass ect..

I can't stand Cal but when he sets his mind to get a kid, he's hard to beat. I hope Mom wins out and Trae stays home.

 

[Max Power]

Wish we had a way to text 85k folks on Saturday and have them start a chant of we want trae at halftime of the game.

you would have to add that he is a 5 star qb for most of them to care.

 

[slides]

Hack the new video board

 

[CoachTalk]

I can't stand Cal but when he sets his mind to get a kid, he's hard to beat. I hope Mom wins out and Trae stays home.

Dad's not a big Uk fan either.

 

[sdcloud9]

Dad's not a big Uk fan either.

That's good to hear, I'm sure they'll support Trae if he went there but that is good news.

 

[Smash Williams]

One would hope these kids would finally see through Cal's BS. He doesn't "put" kids in the NBA. He takes talent and squanders it and makes players draft stock fall. He has never developed 1 singular player into something amazing.

Define "putting" kids in the NBA. If Calipari doesn't put kids in the NBA, which college coaches do?

The notion that Calipari hurts players' draft stock seems baseless. I have yet to see this argument made on the basis of anything other than cherry-picking players that didn't pan out under Cal. Has he had players who weren't drafted as highly as their recruiting rankings would have suggested? Yes, but that's true of every coach that's attracted a decent number of elite recruits. You can't just take a few isolated cases of busts and soundly reach the conclusion that those players were busts because of the coach, rather than considering that those few players were overrated as recruits.

Are Top 5/Top 10/Top 25/etc. recruits who play for Calipari drafted in the first round at a lower rate than recruits who go to other programs? I posted a little about this a few months ago, with some numbers: http://ouhoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39083&page=2

Adding to that, here are the first round picks from the recruiting classes of 2009-2012:

Rivals 5-stars drafted in 1st round
Kentucky: 12/15 (80%)
All others: 33/88 (37.5%)

Rivals Top 10 drafted in 1st round
Kentucky: 8/9 (88.9%)
All others: 18/31 (58.1%)

Rivals Top 5 drafted in 1st round
Kentucky: 7/7 (100%)
All others: 11/13 (84.6%)

Rivals non-Top 10 5-stars drafted in 1st round
Kentucky: 4/6 (66.7%)
All others: 15/57 (26.3%)


It's harder to do the same comparison for 2013-2015, since a lot of the non-Kentucky players are still in school, but here are the numbers for Kentucky:

Rivals 5-stars drafted in 1st round
Kentucky: 6/12 (50%)

Rivals Top 10 drafted in 1st round
Kentucky: 4/8 (50%)

Rivals Top 5 drafted in 1st round
Kentucky: 3/4 (75%)

Rivals non-Top 10 5-stars drafted in 1st round
Kentucky: 2/4 (50%)


Cumulatively for 2009-2015:

Rivals 5-stars drafted in 1st round
Kentucky: 18/27 (66.7%)

Rivals Top 10 drafted in 1st round
Kentucky: 12/17 (70.6%)

Rivals Top 5 drafted in 1st round
Kentucky: 10/11 (90.9%)

Rivals non-Top 10 5-stars drafted in 1st round
Kentucky: 6/10 (60%)

It illustrates the obvious: Kentucky puts a bunch of players in the NBA because a ridiculously high number of their recruits are the elite of the elite (i.e. Top 5/10). However, there is nothing to indicate that elite recruits who go to Kentucky are worse off than those who go to other schools.

Going to a program that's consistently stacked with elite talent helps protect one's draft stock. If you're a top recruit who doesn't put big numbers as a freshman on a team full of NBA players, you don't get dinged by NBA scouts as much as you would at another school because you have a built-in excuse for underwhelming productivity. If you go to a program with less talent, you may get more of an opportunity to show what you can do, but you're also more likely to expose what you can't do.

 

[soonerczech]

The basic gist is that every single one of those 5* Fr that were drafted would have been taken that high or even higher if they had been allowed to go straight from HS to NBA. NBA most often drafts on potential not performance (see Joel Embid and a host of foreign flops). You want a coach who actually produces talent? I dunno.... maybe Izzo.? Cal has turned Kentucky into nothing more then a holding station. He's a great recruiter but a mediocre coach and always has been.

 

[Smash Williams]

The basic gist is that every single one of those 5* Fr that were drafted would have been taken that high or even higher if they had been allowed to go straight from HS to NBA.

Pretty much everyone--recruiting services, draftniks--had Mudiay and Okafor ahead of Towns coming out of high school. I'm not saying that Towns moved up because of Calipari, but he did move up. It's disingenuous to claim that Calipari's one-and-done players only drop or maintain their draft position.

There are a lot of cases of players whose draft stock plummets in that one year. It happens everywhere, but it doesn't happen as often at Kentucky.

NBA most often drafts on potential not performance (see Joel Embid and a host of foreign flops).

Obviously the NBA drafts on potential. That doesn't refute my argument. If anything, it supports it.

Players are drafted on potential, but the perception of that potential changes based on college performance. It's up to NBA scouts to figure out whether underwhelming college production is attributable to a previous misevaluation of potential or other contextual factors (i.e. playing time, team depth).

I have no idea why you would cite Embiid. He was All-Big 12 and Big 12 DPOY as a freshman. He averaged 11 PPG, 8 RPG, and 2.6 BPG in only 23 MPG.

You want a coach who actually produces talent? I dunno.... maybe Izzo.? Cal has turned Kentucky into nothing more then a holding station. He's a great recruiter but a mediocre coach and always has been.

Izzo develops players over 3-4 years. Elite recruits generally don't care about that. How many one-and-dones has he had drafted in the first round? Anyone besides Zach Randolph?

Calipari isn't working miracles on 18-year-olds who are on campus for 6-8 months, but that's not a reasonable expectation for any coach.

 

[soonerczech]

I cited Embiid cause he's a bust in the NBA so far and was drafted based on potential and really just 1 year of play. These other kids have been in AAU for years and scouts know more about them. You said it, Cal isn't doing anything for these kids in 6-8 months. His teams win based on sheer talent that they already had. You can't say he's winning titles because he has what 1? even though he has had a massive talent edge every year.