The NBA All-Star Game will be a showcase for Kentucky basketball. ‘We should be so happy.’
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Game day: No. 22 Kentucky 70, No. 13 Auburn 59
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader’s and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Saturday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Auburn at Auburn, Alabama.
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Ever since John Calipari arrived in town 15 years ago, his band of one-and-done teenagers in tow, there’s been a level of unease among segments of the Kentucky fan base regarding the primary objective of perhaps college basketball’s proudest program.
Calipari famously fanned the flames a year into his tenure — and just a few months removed from UK’s Elite Eight exit in season one — by declaring on 2010 NBA Draft night, with a record five Wildcats chosen in the first round, that the occasion represented “the biggest day in the history of Kentucky’s program.”
His comments that night led to a backlash from fans, as well as some of the program’s most famous former players, who formed the consensus that greatness around here is measured in national championships, not draft night superlatives.
Calipari ended UK’s longest Final Four drought the following year and delivered one of those NCAA titles the year after that, of course, and — while there have always been grumbles from corners of Big Blue Nation that the Hall of Fame coach’s players-first approach comes at the expense of the program’s tradition — winning has had a way of silencing most complaints.
And now, with nearly a decade and a half of Calipari proteges starring in the pros, this weekend will mark a bittersweet occasion for Kentucky fans, who will watch Sunday night as a record-shattering seven former UK players are recognized at the NBA All-Star Game in Indianapolis amid the worst sustained run of the Calipari era.
Kentucky’s current, nine-year Final Four drought is already tied for the second-longest in program history. If the Cats don’t make it this year, the skid will extend to a decade, and only the stretch between the 1998 NCAA title and Calipari’s first Final Four run in 2011 lasted longer.
Meanwhile, Calipari’s ex-Cats are thriving in the NBA at a level unlike no other in league history.
When the seven former Wildcats — Bam Adebayo, Devin Booker, Anthony Davis, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Tyrese Maxey, Karl-Anthony Towns and Julius Randle (who will miss Sunday’s game due to injury) — were selected to be among the 24 participants in this year’s All-Star Game, it obliterated the record for most players from the same school to make the event. The previous record was four, accomplished by Kentucky in 2018 and 2023, and by UCLA back in 1983. Only one other school has more than one player in this year’s game, and that’s Duke, with two.
NBA All-Stars at Kentucky
Calipari is fully aware of the fan discontent over Kentucky’s recent results, especially in the postseason, and he’s been reading the room well enough not to overhype what his former Wildcats are doing in the pros.
But this is also clearly an achievement worth highlighting.
The UK coach did so recently by reminding folks of what this bunch achieved in Lexington.
“We should cheer these kids,” Calipari said on his radio show last week. “We should be so happy. Because of what they’ve done for us. And now they get an opportunity to do what they’re doing on that big stage. And I know our fans are ecstatic for ’em, because you love these kids. But that’s one of those things that you look at, and you just say, ‘Do we really understand how amazing that is?’”
Calipari’s point on this particular bunch: They delivered a whole bunch of memorable moments for Kentucky fans — not to mention three banners — before they bolted for the NBA.
All seven of UK’s 2024 NBA All-Stars were one-and-done college players — “I know some people get mad that kids only stay a year,” Calipari said before imitating the detractors: “‘They’re supposed to stay four years!’” — but this group was responsible for an epic period of winning while they were Wildcats.
Collectively, over the six UK seasons in which these seven players were in college — Booker and Towns were teammates — the Cats had a 188-37 overall record, an 87-19 mark in the SEC, with four league titles, three conference tournament championships, three Final Fours, two national title game appearances and one NCAA championship.
“That’s without Maxey’s team,” Calipari was quick to point out, as he always is, rehashing the assertion that the 2019-20 Wildcats could have won the NCAA title if not for that season’s March Madness — as well as the SEC Tournament — being canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whatever your opinion of that claim — Kentucky was projected as a 4 seed, remember — Calipari’s overall point remains: These ex-Cats did a lot of good for UK basketball.
Preparing for the NBA
Gilgeous-Alexander was one of the 10 NBA players picked as starters for Sunday’s game. Still just 25 years old, he was a first-team All-NBA selection last year and is currently the second betting choice to win the league’s Most Valuable Player award, barely trailing two-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic for that honor, with plenty of basketball still to be played.
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault has a unique perspective on Calipari-era players and their impact on the NBA. Daigneault is in his fourth season as Oklahoma City’s head coach and has been with the franchise for a decade, but — before he jumped to the pros — the 38-year-old was an assistant for four seasons under Billy Donovan at Florida.
At that time — 2010 through 2014 — the Gators were Kentucky’s top competition in the SEC, and the Wildcats enjoyed ample success (three Final Fours and a national title) during that stretch.
Daigneault has presided over Gilgeous-Alexander’s ascent to NBA superstardom, and he also coaches rookie guard Cason Wallace, who was selected to this year’s Rising Stars Game after playing last season at Kentucky.
“I was at Florida for four years and they were in the league,” Daigneault said last week. “And I was always really amazed at the level of pressure that exists in that program just because of the national attention and expectations and the fan base and media market, specifically. Like, those players at a very young age are under real pressure to perform. And when that team wins by five instead of 20 or they lose two games in a row, the sky’s falling. And they have to endure that, and I always was impressed with players from that program’s ability to do so.
“And so I think there’s a preparation element that just a few college programs can give you in that sense, and Kentucky’s one of them.”
Right now, Kentucky is clearly the program when it comes to NBA talent, and with six of its seven All-Stars still in their 20s, that is likely to continue into the foreseeable future.
“You know my goal is to have 12 guys in that game,” Calipari said. “So half the players — that are the best players in the universe — trained at Kentucky and played at Kentucky.”
The UK coach mentioned De’Aaron Fox and Jamal Murray — two former Cats who made the lists of All-Star “snubs” — as guys that could possibly get Kentucky to that probably-unreachable number of 12 All-Stars in the coming years.
“You got some guys in the wings still ready to go,” he said.
This story was originally published February 16, 2024 at 7:00 AM.
