Recruiting drives Calipari’s shift
Kentucky coach says he’s giving up platoons after rivals use selfless system against him
Basketball, in its ideal form, is a game of sharing, collaborating, a group of players working together as one.
Kentucky’s 2014-15 roster was an ideal test case. Coach John Calipari’s talent supply seemed limitless, but game minutes are not, so sharing for the good of the team wasn’t just an ideal but a requirement for success.
And now it’s being portrayed as a detriment.
“If you ask me if I’m ever going to platoon again, my answer is NO,” Calipari tweeted Tuesday. “Last season was an absolute outlier.”
That, along with a lengthy, reflective essay posted on CoachCal.com, is a surprisingly candid admission, if read between the lines: The platoons are hurting Kentucky’s recruiting moving forward.
It has been strange enough to see Calipari miss on multiple fivestar recruits during the spring signing period, strange enough to fuel speculation that is now confirmed. Other coaches started to cite platoons as a means to recruit against Calipari — and it worked.
Kids want to play more minutes elsewhere. They want to be featured. They want to be the star, not simply one of 10.
“Never in my life did I think that I would platoon, but most people didn’t think we would ever win 38 straight to start the year, set a record for wins in a season and have seven players drafted,” Calipari wrote. “It’s amazing people could try to use that against us, but I guess you have to come up with something.”
Calipari spent most of the rest of the essay defending the use of platoons, explaining how for the majority of his career he never really played more than an eightplayer rotation. But because Willie Cauley- Stein, Alex Poythress and the Harrison twins (Andrew and Aaron) returned to play last season and yet another impressive freshman class was headed to Lexington, Calipari thought he had to try a 10-man rotation, with essentially two starting lineups, to allow players to “eat” enough. (That, essentially, was how he operated before Poythress’ seasonending injury.)
Calipari emphasized, again and again, that he puts his players first and that this was what he thought it took to get up to eight players drafted in June. He also figured it would maximize the team’s chances of success.
But now he must switch gears and change the narrative surrounding his program. He still will seek players who can buy into what he preaches and play selflessly — just not that selflessly.
“I think how you will see us playing going forward will be closer to how we have always played,” Calipari wrote. “That won’t be platooning. ... In all my coaching career, I’ve always played six, seven or eight guys. As a matter of fact, at UMass in 1996 I played five — the sixth man played single-digit minutes. My guards played 39 minutes a game.”
Calipari emphasized minutes there — keeping bench players in single figures — and later in his piece emphasized points, saying that normally he averages five players in double figures.
Again, these seem to be sticking points, things future recruits need to hear before they sign with the Wildcats.
These seem to represent an act of defiance, an act of resignation, an admission that just because. platooning worked in multiple ways — 38 wins, a Southeastern Conference championship, an NCAA Midwest Region crown, near perfection and more NBA-bound players — the side effect was a negative impact on recruiting.
For a coach such as Calipari whose aim each season is to send players to the next level and then reload, recruiting is his lifeblood.
And that’s what this open letter is really all about.
“I think we wrote the book on platooning this year, but I hope we stick it on the shelf and never have to use it again,” Calipari wrote.
Elite recruits and their parents hope the same thing, apparently.