Chasing Perfection: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the High-Stakes Game of Creating an NBA Champion by Andy Glockner Page A
Authors: Andy Glockner
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and entering the 2014–15 season, the Wildcats were expected to be very, very good. Fueled by a superb freshman class led by multiskilled forward Karl-Anthony Towns, and a number of returnees from the season before, the biggest challenge for head coach John Calipari wasn’t anyone on the team’s schedule. It was that he had too much talent and depth on his roster, and needed to figure out a way to manage it all successfully. With as many as ten players who conceivably could start, and numerous prospects that looked like potential NBA lottery selections, he and his staff needed to get creative.
Calipari has been a master recruiter and self-promoter since his days at the University of Massachusetts acouple of decades ago. There, he built a national power around the skills of forwards Lou Roe and then Marcus Camby, whose shotblocking and athleticism in a 6-foot-11 frame ultimately made him the No. 2 overall pick in the 1996 NBA Draft. Calipari had a similar ramp-up at the University of Memphis in the middle of last decade, ultimately elevating that program back into national title contention when he had point guard Derrick Rose, who became the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft and would win the league’s MVP award three seasons later. The potent mixture of Kentucky basketball’s platform and Calipari, though, lifted everything to another level.
Despite the school’s basketball pedigree, the Wildcats program wasn’t ready-made for Calipari when he arrived in the summer of 2009. Things had stagnated under former coach Tubby Smith, who had won a national title in 1998, his first season at the school, and then never got back to the Final Four. Kentucky then took a significant jolt from two tepid seasons under Billy Gillispie, who had led Texas A&M to unexpected heights but was overmatched in Lexington and also struggled with alcohol issues as the Wildcats sagged into national also-ran status.
The Wildcats weren’t winning nearly enough, they weren’t recruiting nearly well enough, and they didn’t matter nearly as much as other elite programs like Kansas, which won the national title in 2008 (over Calipari’s Memphis Tigers, in overtime in the final) and North Carolina, which rolled to the crown in 2009 behind four NBA lottery selections in that year’s draft. But Kentucky was still Kentucky, the bluest of college bluebloods. It needed a coach—a CEO/evangelist, really—worthy of its grandeur, and no one was a better fit for that program at that moment than Calipari. It was the job, and the pulpit, he had been waiting for his whole career. Kentucky basketball is akin to religion in the Commonwealth, and Calipari can sell hoops faith like none other.
In his first season in Lexington, Calipari immediately made the Wildcats into one of the best teams in the nation behind the talents of John Wall (who would then be the NBA’s No. 1 overall pick), DeMarcus “Boogie” Cousins (who went No. 5 overall in that same draft) and Eric Bledsoe (No. 18 overall). The following year, a less-talented version of the Wildcats unexpectedly clawed its way to the Final Four. The season after that, powered by the uber-talented frontcourt pair of Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, the Wildcats finished 38–2 and won the school’s eighth national championship. Those two freshmen then went Nos. 1 and 2 overall in the 2012 NBA Draft. Two seasons later, in 2014, Kentucky was back in the national title game again after negotiating some in-season struggles.
Then, the unexpected happened. Kentucky, which under Calipari had been a program heavily fueled by “one-and-done” players who excelled as freshmen and then immediately jumped to the NBA, had a sizable number of players decide to return for the 2014–15 campaign. With yet another loaded class set to arrive, Calipari needed to find a way to manage everyone’s minutes, win games on the floor, and set up as many players as possible for maximum NBA interest.
So, he hired
Calipari has been a master recruiter and self-promoter since his days at the University of Massachusetts acouple of decades ago. There, he built a national power around the skills of forwards Lou Roe and then Marcus Camby, whose shotblocking and athleticism in a 6-foot-11 frame ultimately made him the No. 2 overall pick in the 1996 NBA Draft. Calipari had a similar ramp-up at the University of Memphis in the middle of last decade, ultimately elevating that program back into national title contention when he had point guard Derrick Rose, who became the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft and would win the league’s MVP award three seasons later. The potent mixture of Kentucky basketball’s platform and Calipari, though, lifted everything to another level.
Despite the school’s basketball pedigree, the Wildcats program wasn’t ready-made for Calipari when he arrived in the summer of 2009. Things had stagnated under former coach Tubby Smith, who had won a national title in 1998, his first season at the school, and then never got back to the Final Four. Kentucky then took a significant jolt from two tepid seasons under Billy Gillispie, who had led Texas A&M to unexpected heights but was overmatched in Lexington and also struggled with alcohol issues as the Wildcats sagged into national also-ran status.
The Wildcats weren’t winning nearly enough, they weren’t recruiting nearly well enough, and they didn’t matter nearly as much as other elite programs like Kansas, which won the national title in 2008 (over Calipari’s Memphis Tigers, in overtime in the final) and North Carolina, which rolled to the crown in 2009 behind four NBA lottery selections in that year’s draft. But Kentucky was still Kentucky, the bluest of college bluebloods. It needed a coach—a CEO/evangelist, really—worthy of its grandeur, and no one was a better fit for that program at that moment than Calipari. It was the job, and the pulpit, he had been waiting for his whole career. Kentucky basketball is akin to religion in the Commonwealth, and Calipari can sell hoops faith like none other.
In his first season in Lexington, Calipari immediately made the Wildcats into one of the best teams in the nation behind the talents of John Wall (who would then be the NBA’s No. 1 overall pick), DeMarcus “Boogie” Cousins (who went No. 5 overall in that same draft) and Eric Bledsoe (No. 18 overall). The following year, a less-talented version of the Wildcats unexpectedly clawed its way to the Final Four. The season after that, powered by the uber-talented frontcourt pair of Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, the Wildcats finished 38–2 and won the school’s eighth national championship. Those two freshmen then went Nos. 1 and 2 overall in the 2012 NBA Draft. Two seasons later, in 2014, Kentucky was back in the national title game again after negotiating some in-season struggles.
Then, the unexpected happened. Kentucky, which under Calipari had been a program heavily fueled by “one-and-done” players who excelled as freshmen and then immediately jumped to the NBA, had a sizable number of players decide to return for the 2014–15 campaign. With yet another loaded class set to arrive, Calipari needed to find a way to manage everyone’s minutes, win games on the floor, and set up as many players as possible for maximum NBA interest.
So, he hired
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