Clever or Desperate? Roy Williams Wields M.J.’s Ring during Julius Randle In-Home
North Carolina head coach Roy Williams pulled out all the stops during his in-home visit with Texas super-recruit Julius Randle (2013). And by stops, I mean rings. Thirty of them.
Williams showered the talented Texan with dozens of rings he had collected over the years, ranging from UNC conference championships to Final Four appearances (who knew schools even got rings for these?). But it was one ring in particular that especially resonated with Randle.
Mar 16, 2012; Greensboro, NC, USA; North Carolina Tar Heels head coach Roy Williams in action against the Vermont Catamounts during the second half of the second round of the 2012 NCAA men
Williams, according to Jason Jordan of USA Today, showed off Michael Jordan’s 1992 NBA championship ring he won with the Chicago Bulls. That’s the same Michael Jordan, you know, that Williams never actually coached as the head man in charge (Williams was a Carolina assistant during Jordan’s three years at the school). But M.J. was a Tar Heel. And Williams saw him up-close and personal in practice. So I guess there’s that.
An experienced, rational thinker would balk at the pitch, realizing that Williams is taking credit for someone he never got the chance to coach. But in-home visits, by their very nature, routinely take on persuasive, salesman-like tones not conducive to rational thinking. And more importantly, they deal with impressionable teens aspiring to be the next big NBA star.
What wouldn’t work with a sage adult—or anyone, for that matter, who knew Dean Smith, not Roy Williams, coached M.J. at UNC—may actually be enough to sway the 17-year-old Randle. John Calipari tried a similar pitch during his recent in-home, brandishing the school’s 2012 national championship ring.
Williams and Calipari aren’t dumb. They’re two of the premiere recruiters in college hoops for a reason, many reason, actually. The shiny keepsakes and “A” List connections appeal to high school kids. Flaunting a program’s tie to the recording artist Drake, as Kentucky does, is a tacky, but highly effective way of baiting pliable teen hoops stars. And it works. Frequently. Probably too frequently.
Whether Randle sees through the phoniness of these kinds of pitches remains to be seen. Judging by the quotes in the USA Today story, he may not. He probably should though.
Randle was three years old when Jordan retired from the Bulls. He wasn’t even alive when M.J. won the ’92 championship, his second ring, and the one ole Roy was so quick to wield. Other than the noteworthy name itself, what other connections could Randle possibly have to Jordan? Everything he knows of the 6-time NBA champion he owes to highlights, documentaries and stories recanted. Hell, the two players play different positions and have completely unrelated games.
Roy Williams notched some bonus points for creativity during his appeal to Randle, but the substance of the pitch itself was flimsy at best. Williams was not trying to sell Randle as the next M.J. How could he? Nor was Williams trying to show off his experience guiding NBA superstars. He couldn’t. The only one he’s ever coached [as a head coach] was Paul Pierce. And that was at Kansas, not North Carolina.
By pulling out his collection of rings, namely Jordan’s ’92 championship ring, Williams wasn’t sending some profound message of expectation. This wasn’t about Roy’s desire for Randle to lead North Carolina to a championship some day, as Jordan did with the Heels in ‘82 and again, six times in fact, with the Bulls. Williams whipped out dozens of glitzy props because that’s all it takes to get through to young, aspiring NBA stars.
His ploy, as hollow as it seems to the trained eye, may very well work, too. The gizmos and gadgets and haughty displays usually do these days.
Duke, tagged with a huge act to follow, just wrapped up its day-long in-home visit with Randle on Tuesday. Wonder if Coach K flaunted some jewelry of his own, sponsored by Lance Thomas, to even the score?