Calipari wants Kentucky newcomers to watch ‘The Last Dance.’ Here’s why it matters.
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Coffee with Cal
University of Kentucky men’s basketball coach John Calipari is hosting a weekly show on Facebook Live called “Coffee with Cal” in which he interviews influential individuals from the worlds of sports, media, politics and beyond. The shows are designed to benefit COVID-19 relief and draw attention to the Black Lives Matter movement. Click below to read the Herald-Leader’s stories recapping previous shows.
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For players on Kentucky’s basketball team next season, the current documentary series on Michael Jordan titled “The Last Dance” is must-see TV. John Calipari insisted.
“I’m having all my players who are coming in watch this,” the UK coach said during his “Coffee With Cal” Facebook show Monday.
Calipari wants the Kentucky players to see — and he no doubt hopes they emulate — Jordan’s competitive zeal.
“Winning matters,” Calipari said. “It’s not exchanging baskets. It’s not exchanging touchdowns. To him, it was, ‘I’m dominating somebody.’”
The reference to touchdowns surely hit home with his guest on Monday’s episode, wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals.
Earlier this year, Fitzgerald bought an interest in the Phoenix Suns. He described himself as “a huge hoops fan for a very long time.”
An ownership stake in the Suns brought Fitzgerald even closer to former UK player Devin Booker. The two live about a mile apart on the same street in Phoenix, Fitzgerald said.
Calipari referenced social media reports of Booker being in a relationship with model Kendall Jenner. TMZ Sports said Booker was a “special quarantine pal” of Jenner.
“I stay out of the personal affairs,” Fitzgerald said.
But he spoke glowingly of Booker the basketball player. His description suggested Booker had a Jordanesque desire to compete.
“The thing I really, really love about Devin is his mentality,” said Fitzgerald, who then recalled a game the Suns played against the Oklahoma City Thunder three or so years ago.
The Thunder’s star, Russell Westbrook, needed one or two rebounds and assists in the fourth quarter to draw closer to the NBA record for triple-doubles in a season.
“And ‘Book’ just shut it down,” Fitzgerald said. “He was not going to allow him to do that on his home court. Like, that just really stood out to me as competitive to see a young guy with that kind of tenacity and wherewithal to understand, ‘It’s going to happen, but it’s not going to happen tonight on my watch.’
“I was completely sold after seeing that.”
Calipari said the winning-matters mentality keyed his recruiting effort when he first became a college head coach at UMass in 1988. Inheriting a program that had one of the worst winning percentages in Division I in the previous years of the decade, he targeted players from high school teams that either won state championships or were runners-up.
“We brought in a bunch of kids who only knew winning,” Calipari said, “because kids in the program only knew losing.”
London in limbo
Not for the first time, Calipari spoke of Kentucky’s scheduled game in London next season as being in doubt because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re going to be hamstrung a little bit on the travel for the time being,” Calipari said. “We were planning on a game in London. We’re trying to figure out if that’s going to be able to happen. We’re walking through that right now.”
The game is supposed to be a fundraiser for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Earlier this spring, it was announced Kentucky would play Michigan in London on Dec. 6.
The NFL announced Monday that it was moving five games scheduled to be played in London or Mexico City next season back to the United States.
Golf with Obama
Calipari and Fitzgerald traded stories about playing golf with former president Barack Obama.
“He’s the real deal,” Calipari said of Obama. The former president shot an 80 on the round, the UK coach said.
Fitzgerald said he made a hole-in-one while playing with Obama. He said he hit an 8-iron 170 yards in acing the hole.
“I was blown away,” he said.
Bad word
While noting the importance of sacrificing individual achievement in order to foster a collective team effort, Fitzgerald used a bad word. He said “platoons” in describing Kentucky’s 2014-15 team.
“Don’t remind me of platoons,” Calipari said.
UK was surprised when Aaron and Andrew Harrison, Willie Cauley-Stein and Alex Poythress all chose to return that season rather than enter the NBA. So, Calipari said he came up with the platoon system of substitution in order to get playing time for 10 capable players.
“No good deed goes unpunished,” he said. “Now, (rivals) use it in recruiting. ‘Do you want to go there and play 20 minutes?’”
This story was originally published May 4, 2020 at 3:28 PM.
