Kentucky Wildcats: NBA Factory or NCAA Title Contender?

In an interesting appearance, Kentucky Wildcats head coach John Calipari has made it known that sending players to the NBA is just as important as working towards a national championship.

Winning has always been the measure of greatness. Any priority other than that in athletic competition, especially in NCAA Basketball, is extraneous noise that needs to be drowned out in order to win the ultimate prize, which is the NCAA Championship.

Turns out, that narrative does not hold true for some teams. One of them was bold enough to admit where their priorities lied last season.

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During a lecture at Alltech Rebelation, as reported by Kentucky Sports Radio, Kentucky Wildcats head coach John Calipari explained that last season, his main goal was to send eight players to the NBA Draft, leaving the Kentucky in a position comparable to being a bodybuilder in regards to it’s chase of a national title – yeah, you’re going to try to get to a place where you can win a Mr. Olympia, but even if you fall short, you’re still going to have a killer body.

“Last year we started the season with a goal,” he told the crowd. “You may think that goal was to win the national title and win all the games and be… It was to get eight players drafted.”

Here is a slide that he used in the same lecture outlining his process for turning individual success into team success provided by Reddit user, claytoncash. Please appreciate Calipari totally playing into his used car salesman reputation with the Pyramid Scheme model that he used.

It would be unfair to say that becoming an assembly line for NBA talent was Calipari’s only priority, but you can’t knock him for being disingenuous. Top recruits in the nation have the same priorities that Calipari outlined in this lecture, which are driving them to buy what he is selling.

Five-star recruits love to win sure, but they don’t want to do it for the love of a university. They are winning so pro scouts can notice them and they can make a living playing basketball at the highest level. This is just another look at the recruiting pitch that John Calipari has mastered and successfully implemented for the Kentucky Wildcats.

Calipari is basically saying that he acknowledges your dreams of becoming an NBA player, and here is how you will get there while still succeeding as a team. Top recruits are already on NBA scouts’ radars, so all they have to do is follow his tried and true formula of sacrifice and hard work and they will get to the NBA.

This is why the NBA Draft Combine held exclusively for Kentucky Wildcats players last season was genius. After selling his recruits on taking them to the NBA, he delivered by holding a practice before the season began that 90 NBA scouts and front office personnel attended, where his players ran drills and scrimmages to show off for real NBA decision makers. After satisfying their individual need to be noticed by scouts, he could then turn their attention to winning and playing as a team when the season started, which is an aspect that NBA teams also look at when drafting talent.

It isn’t like his method failed, either. Calipari enjoyed one of the greatest seasons that the Kentucky Wildcats have ever experienced, going undefeated through the regular season, sweeping the Conference Titles, and reaching the Final Four before becoming a couple ill-advised Harrison twins isolation plays away from being in the National Championship.

Not surprisingly, Kentucky/Calipari haters will pan this approach because it places an emphasis on individual accomplishments rather than competing for the good of the team. That may be true, but when those individual goals result in advancing the Final Four after winning 38 straight games, how could be it argued that this method is not successful?

In fact, the ability of Calipari to turn the obvious individual goals of players into team success is exactly what makes him a great coach. Sure, he may not be the X’s and O’s guy that some coaches are, but at least he is honest and can get talented players to check their egos and play together.

So keep churning out those NBA players, Cal. Eventually, you’ll get another national championship getting future professional competitors to play together.

Next: John Calipari Sticking with Kentucky for Life?

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