DJ Gallo of The Guardian says the Kentucky Wildcats are the only honest team in college basketball.
Here is an excerpt:
But through all of Coach K’s self-congratulatory propaganda – and there’s been far more than just that 30-second AmEx ad from a decade ago – what he doesn’t admit is that he’s trying to do the same thing Calipari is. The Kentucky coach is just more honest about it. Duke only pretends it’s still molding leaders. Four freshman bolting to the NBA draft in the last two years suggest Coach K is not as concerned about his players “developing as students” as he might like us all to think. In fact, Duke product Kyrie Irving believing the earth is flat suggests the Blue Devils aren’t going to class or learning beyond basketball at all.
“Coach Cal tells all his recruits – he told me – ‘I get guys to where they want to go. I like to make their dream come true,’” Davis said before the 2012 NBA draft when he went No1 overall. “He runs this program as if it were an NBA team. He lets us run up and down the floor … teaches us a lot of things that players in the NBA do. I would say we’re kind of getting a head start on what’s going to happen at the next level.” Today Davis is a four-time NBA All-Star and makes more than $30m a year on and off the court.
Kentucky is college basketball’s one open and unabashed NBA factory and recruits keep rewarding the program for its honesty. Five of the top 32 players in the 2017 class as rated by ESPN have committed to come to Lexington next year to replace Fox, Monk and Adebayo, and that many more will undoubtedly roll on through in 2018, as well.
The kids that go to Kentucky are signing up because they want careers as professional basketball players. Calipari isn’t forcing them away from their desired futures as school teachers or astronauts, demanding they don’t receive four-year educations. These are players who have worked their whole lives to be NBA-quality and are going to the college that gives them the best chance to go pro. It’s the same way the nation’s top-rated flute recruit is probably going to pick Juilliard over Kentucky.
