John Calipari Can Hope Recruiting Leads To Titles, But He’s Fine If It Doesn’t

Mandatory Credit: Mark Zerof-USA TODAY Sports

John Calipari has got this whole recruiting thing down to a T.

No one man in college basketball has the media, recruits, NBA scouts, and even hip-hop mogul Drake eating out of the palm of his hand more than Coach Cal. While some don’t buy his overall “used-car salesman” approach to the game, his ability to attract top-level talent and send them on to a promising professional career, all while contending for a deep run in March, shouldn’t be denied. The mere list of NBA players that were under his tutelage while in college is astounding: Derrick Rose, DeMarcus Cousins, John Wall and Anthony Davis to name a few.

Each of those elite players spent only one season under Calipari. Cal isn’t the type of guy who will sidestep the topic, or even deny that sending his players to the NBA as fast as possible is even a negative thing. In fact, he’s subtly campaigning to rebrand the negative “one and done” label given to many of his players to a more positive, uplifting tag: Succeed and proceed.

This season’s Kentucky roster, though, will list a few players Coach Cal had to believe would’ve succeeded and proceeded by now. Willie Cauley-Stein, Andrew Harrison, and Aaron Harrison all were legitimate draft picks at the end of the college basketball season last year, but all three decided to return to Lexington for another year under Calipari. Having NBA caliber players decide to stay in college one more year would normally be the best news a head coach can hear heading into the next season.

Calipari’s response, though, was: “Oh my gosh…What am I going to do?”

The Wildcats will start the season with nine McDonalds All-Americans, all of which currently rank in the top 43 NBA prospects, according to Draft Express. While Lexington, Kentucky may be a haven for professional scouts over the next few months, Kentucky’s coaching staff will by downing large amounts Tylenol in hopes to curb the headache brought on by trying to manage such a talented squad.

The first issue, and normally the biggest, is how to win with such a talent-crowded roster. It shouldn’t be surprising that the law of diminishing returns applies to the amount of talent on rosters, and in fact, can even harm the successfulness of the overall team. A recent article published in Scientific American found that too much talent can actually be a detriment to teams, especially in the sports of soccer and basketball. The main issue becomes teamwork, and with a squad full of players who want to make sure they get theirs, large-scale goals get thrown by the wayside and get replaced with the pursuit of stats and draft picks.

Consider the team chemistry UConn’s run in 2011 and 2014, or Louisville’s title in 2012 (especially after Kevin Ware’s injury). Sure, both squads had some pro prospects, but they weren’t swarming with McDonald’s All-Americans. What they did have was something that bonded the players together and garnered a common vision for where they wanted to end their season. Those guys loved each other, and it was evident as they gathered up on the podium to accept their trophy.

This Kentucky team could very easily gel together but, let’s be honest, that isn’t the full reason you play for John Calipari. Kentucky’s head coach gets a player exposure like no other can. He organizes unprecedented NBA combines in which NINETY pro scouts show up to watch his team. Cal has even bit the bullet and created a platoon system that features two five-man squads that will replace each other in-game, calming the prospects’ nerves about not getting valuable minutes on a stacked roster.

These aren’t decisions the average head coach is faced with, but John Calipari is the type of guy who is disgusted with the average. Cal has experienced winning the NCAA Tournament and can undoubtedly attest to it being one of the most difficult feats in sports, which may be why he’s mastered an area of college coaching that is more easily attainable for him.

Recruiting adds excitement to every new season, brings national attention to the program, sells out games, and establishes a relationship with the NBA. Calipari has been making the rounds across all media platforms, preaching the gospel of the platoons. And if his stacked roster gets stuck in rut mid-season (as his teams have been known to do) and fail to make a post-season run, Kentucky will surely win the offseason again by sending top talent to the NBA while simultaneously ushering in the new Derrick Roses, Boogie Cousins’s, and Anthony Davis’s into his freshman class.

John Calipari has, quite geniusly, set up the Kentucky program to prosper year in and year out despite the win-loss record at the end of the year. Even when they lose, they can’t lose.

Don’t expect him to apologize, either. His whole career has been more about building up young men and promoting talent to their eventual NBA dream than winning championships, which is hard to argue with. And if you call BS on that being his actual approach, I’m sure he’d love for you to flip through his 276 page book Players First: Coaching from the Inside Out.

He’s never denied being a great salesman.