Is Calipari ‘ridiculous’ in saying G League robs players of chance to get education?
Unprompted by a question, Kentucky Coach John Calipari went on a six-plus minute screed during his news conference at the Southeastern Conference Media Day on Wednesday. The topic was familiar: The mistake it would be to incentivize high school players to choose playing in the G League for a year rather than using the so-called one-and-done college route to the NBA.
A player choosing one season of the G League rather than college basketball would be robbed of a potentially inspiring introduction to higher education, Calipari said. He seemed to suggest — but did not directly say — that a racial bias would play a part in the G League option because people in an “ivory tower” welcomed the idea of players from a certain “demographic” skipping college.
Then the NBA announced Thursday that select high school players would be given the chance to earn $125,000 by playing in the G League for a season beginning next year. Those players would then be eligible to enter the following year’s NBA Draft.
David Ridpath, a professor of sports administration at Ohio University, said that it would be “spot-on” to suspect that self-interest fueled Calipari’s objection to a G League option. In Calipari’s time, one-and-done players have made Kentucky a perennial national championship contender and the coach the owner of a contract that pays him $8 million per year.
With fewer or possibly no one-and-done players, programs like Kentucky and Duke would have to concoct a new formula for success. The old formula — recruit the best players — will be a hard act to follow.
“Let’s face it, John Calipari is trying to protect something here,” Ridpath said of the UK coach’s repeated protests. “He’s got a pretty good deal. And I’m not blaming him. He is using the one-and-done system to his advantage, and I would do the same thing.
“But maybe he sees that his applecart is going to get upset, and this is more about John Calipari than it’s about kids.”
Ridpath is a former president of The Drake Group, a reform-minded organization that seeks to preserve and enhance the role of academics in college athletics. When asked what he thought of any college basketball coach lamenting the potential loss of educational opportunities, he said, “I think it’s laughable.”
Ridpath cited the ongoing trial in New York regarding alleged college basketball corruption and recent academic scandals at North Carolina and Minnesota as evidence that education can be low on a program’s priority list. Class work is more about “eligibility maintenance” than higher learning, he said.
“So saying it has anything to do with education is pretty ridiculous,” he said of Calipari linking the G League to the loss of an educational opportunity.
Calipari based his argument not on one-and-done players, but on lesser players who mistakenly see themselves on the fast track to the NBA. For them, the G League and that $125,000 would amount to a basketball dead end. There would not be even the beginnings of a college education to fall back on.
“How do we encourage the others (that) you need an education?” Calipari said at the SEC Media Day. “You may make it. You may not.”
Ridpath was not convinced.
“No one can say the way college basketball is structured now that the emphasis is on education,” he said. “I think that’s just a hollow argument.”
Calipari cited statistics. During the one-and-done era the NCAA has trumpeted high graduation rates for all players and, in particular, black players.
Ridpath countered that graduation rates are “easily manipulated.” He cited North Carolina’s recent academic scandal as a reason to be skeptical of graduation rates and numbers from the NCAA’s Academic Progress Rate.
Calipari and Ridpath agree in how academics and athletics can coexist. Both said that players who try the G League option and fail to reach the NBA should be given the opportunity to have a college scholarship and be eligible to play. Both support what UK offers, the “lifetime scholarship,” which is a chance to return to college later in life and pursue a degree.
‘Everyone cheats’
Jerry Meyer, a national analyst for the recruiting service 247 Sports, does not think that top prospects will automatically go to the G League rather than play a season or more of college basketball.
“I’d think they’d have to make it a lot more than 125 (thousand) to be swayed in that direction,” he said.
When it was suggested that $125,000 for playing a season of basketball sounded like a lot of money, Meyer said, “That’s not as much as the college pays to recruit them.” After laughing, he said the $125,000 “might compare for, like, a high four-star (prospect).
“I mean, c’mon now. Are we still acting like not everyone cheats?”
Meyer cited the ongoing trial in New York regarding college basketball corruption as an opportunity for enlightenment.
“This trial should be teaching everyone how it’s done,” he said. “And a mistake some of these coaches made was being too loose in their communication with the actors. And the smart coaches aren’t making that mistake.”
Road worriers
SEC coaches spoke of how the return of more than 15 players who entered this year’s NBA Draft should enhance the caliber of competition this coming season.
“It’s going to be harder to win on the road, I think,” Texas A&M Coach Billy Kennedy said. “Because experienced teams win their home games.”
‘Mix-up’
During an interview on the Big Blue Madness Blue carpet, Isaac Humphries explained his place in pro basketball.
“It was a bit of a mix-up with the media,” he said. “I signed with the (Atlanta) Hawks. I’m still with the Hawks. I’m just with the G League squad. That was always the plan. I knew that was going to happen the whole time.”
Humphries is with the Erie BayHawks, a team based in Erie, Pa., as the G League affiliate of the Atlanta Hawks. He acknowledged being a bit confused himself. He leaped to the immediate conclusion he would play for the NBA’s Hawks.
“I was very excited,” he said. “Then I found out that Erie is nowhere near Atlanta. And it’s cold.
“But I love this area of the world, so I’m not mad.”
Distinction extinction?
Nazr Mohammed holds the distinction of having had the longest NBA career of any former Kentucky player. He played 18 seasons in the NBA.
“It’s nice,” he said of this distinction, “but it’s nothing I strived to get. Knocking them out one by one, and try to stick around as long as I could till I don’t want to do it anymore.”
Mohammed, a player on three of UK’s Final Four teams (1996, 1997 and 1998), retired from the NBA in 2016.
Of having the longest NBA career of any ex-Cat, he said, “I’ve heard about it. But it’s not going to last long. We have a lot of ‘bigs.’ One of those guys will knock it off. A.D. (Anthony Davis) may play forever.”
Nostalgic
Former UK players Kenny Walker and Jeff Sheppard spoke fondly of past Madness celebrations.
Walker recalled watching with teammate Roger Harden in 1983 as cars filled the parking lot outside Memorial Coliseum hours before what UK then called Midnight Madness.
“Man, all these people for a practice,” Walker said he and Harden marveled. “The most I had played in front of was 6,000 (or) 7,000. I was nervous as heck.”
Sheppard, who played for UK about a decade later, said, “I love it at Rupp Arena. I love it even more at Memorial Coliseum.”
When asked why Memorial Coliseum meant more to him, Sheppard said, “I just loved how the fans got to continue to camp out, just staying there day upon day upon day.
“And I love the history that’s at Memorial Coliseum. It’s very, very special.”
Light comedy
Of course, UK’s first Madness in 1982 did not have indoor fireworks, flames shooting up a la the Wizard of Oz, nor the lights dimmed for dramatic effect.
Then-UK Coach Joe B. Hall explained the practicalities of staging Madness in Memorial Coliseum. “If you turn off the lights, it took 30 minutes to turn them back on,” he said with a laugh.
Fashion statement
Kenny Walker said he gained the nickname “Sky Walker” at the 1983 Madness.
The T-shirt he wore to the 2018 Madness was a variation on the theme. Printed on the front of the shirt were the words “Let there be flight.”
Congratulations
To sportswriter Sid Hartman of the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. On Wednesday, he will be formally inducted into the Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame.
Hartman, who turns 99 in March, wrote his first column the same month Gen. Douglas MacArthur oversaw the formal end of World War II with the Japanese surrender on the USS Missouri. He continues to report and write.
Happy birthday
To Kyle Wiltjer. He turned 26 on Saturday. ... To former UK football coach Bill Curry. He turns 76 on Sunday (today). ... To Stacey Poole. He turns 27 on Wednesday.
Sunday
Blue-White Game
Where: Rupp Arena
When: 7 p.m. (SEC Network)