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May 25, 2013Anthony Lima and Dustin Fox hosted University of Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari on their show this afternoon. The segment was great and packed with lots of intriguing Cavaliers draft fodder.
But how the 54-year-old Calipari started off the segment — when prodded if he thinks Cleveland would be making a mistake if they don’t pick former Wildcat Nerlens Noel No. 1 overall — stood out the most:
“Chris Grant and his crew are the most thorough people that I’ve seen,” he said. “No disrespect to anyone else in the league, all I know is I’ve seen Chris’ face more in my gym than any other GM, guys that are making the decision. So, if he picks my guy, my hope is he picks him, which means he’s the No. 1 guy because they don’t make many mistakes. When you go back to Tristan [Thompson], everybody says, ‘What are they doing? Fourth pick in the draft, that’s crazy!’ When they picked Kyrie [Irving], they were saying, ‘Wait a minute, Kyrie’s toe.’ Well, he’s going to be the best point guard in the NBA here in short order. Then, they picked Dion Waiters and everybody says ‘What the heck?’ So I’m looking at it saying, ‘Look, they don’t make many mistakes, and if they pick my guy that means he is the guy.”
Those are pretty strong words from any college coach, let alone one who has coached some of the elite, elite prospects over the last half decade. The fact that he went out of his way to begin the segment like that is certainly noteworthy. Definitely, it appears the Cavs’ scouting and drafting success has a much better reputation than the other two Cleveland teams, and for that we should be grateful.
[Related: Cavalier NBA Draft Film Room: Nerlens Noel]
6 Comments
I like it and agree but it’s not like he shouldn’t e making nice as the higher Noel goes the better for his recruiting.
I have trouble buying anything a college coach has to say in terms of the pro prospects of any of his players. Not that Cal really needs to sell kids on his program, but it certainly helps his recruiting to be able to point to Noel and say to kids, “Look, this is where I can get you”. Let’s not get seduced into a bad pick by a professional used car salesman.
If this was any other coach I’d be pretty impressed. But its Calipari, the most self-centered coach in college sports, so I can only feel a slight tinge of satisfaction.
Not bad.
Sounds like a recruiting trip to me!
This isn’t so terrible a thing. He thinks highly of our scouting staff/GM. He’s done several interviews touting our staff. When has he ever done that for another team? I’m seriously interested in knowing that.