🏀 KuBuckets Archive

@drgnslayr

"What has he done to project himself as a top recruiter?"

This is the essence of it.

I have thought about Self at Illini in comparison with Stumpy at Arizona.

Kruger had turned Illinois around. He had solid Chicago talent. Self came in after an Elite Eight at Tulsa and basically had Kruger's blessing and kept Kruger's recruiter. Self got a bunch of very good Chicago talent shortly, which is what a new coach building off a rising program and retaining the previous coach's recruiter at Illinois is supposed to do.

Now think about Stumpy. He leads Xavier to the Dance, but not an Elite Eight, as I recall. He gets hired by Arizona, which was good under Lute Olson, but fell apart as Lute left the program. It was struggling. Interim coach problems. Replacement coach problems. Program seemed in disarray. Not sure what went on there. Enter Stumpy, who has not recruited Arizona, which doesn't produce much talent, or SoCal, which produces a significant amount of the players Lute used to play and win with. Suddenly Stumpy is drawing them in from all over and beating long established coaches with rings at more prestigious programs not in disarray for talent.

How does this happen?

It is one of the simplest decisions there is.

If he wants to sit around and goof off for the rest of his life, then he stays put and keeps enjoying his team and winning rings and makes the most of what endorsement opps come from winning ring.

If he wants to build a business after his playing days, then he opts for the highest bidder and best alternative team. Doing so will force Riley to meet the offer, because Riles knows there are no rings to be had without a natural born winner and money player. Riley, after Mario makes clear he is in this for the money, will pay him anything he wants. Then Mario will get the extra bones he will need to build his business after his playing days and Riles will get his rings.

Next.

@REHawk

Self likes the shorter time clock, because he is a defensive coach. The shorter time clock means you don't have to guard as long. The offense has less chance to run action on you. The shorter time clock is like a sixth defender, if Self can get them to shorten it up as much as the NBA clock, his defenses will become decisive again.

Another advantage of shorter time clock is for the defense with a rim protector, which Self has been able to sign quite a few of. A shorter time clock means there are fewer ball reversals. Usually only one and that means that the rim protector only has to fight across the lane for position once, which means he can spend a lot more time rim protecting and a lot less time fighting through XTReme Muscle to rim protect.

Self is nobody's fool about the shorter shot clock. He knows that the NBA depends massively on rim protection defense exactly because of the short shot clock. He knows KU' recruiting calling card is Big Man U.

@VailHawk

Not yet. Is ithe book a corruption expose or a positive cockle warmer?

Here is the kind of book I am looking for: a book that tells the story of how D1 hoops was cleaned up after the three books on corruption I listed above were written.

I am also looking for a book that tells the story of how the coaching code that Jud Heathcoate mentioned in one of the above mentioned books--the code wherein young assistant coaches were intentionally compromised, so they would uphold the code of never ratting out their fellow coaches--is no longer in place.

Next, I'm looking for a book that refutes even most of the allegations of cheating made by Bob Knight over the years.

Regarding KU, I suspect Self runs a clean program relative to most programs.

Regarding SHOECOs influence, I doubt anything going on is illegal. I doubt rules have ever been written that prohibit what goes on. I am just trying to figure what goes so as to understand if some rules ought to be written.

Regarding Stumpy Miller, assault seems an inappropriate word choice on your part. I just wonder how a coach from a mid major that moves to an Arizona program in disarray can rapidly beat proven coaches at elite programs out of so much talent. Zona's team was filled with guys all of the elite teams tried hard to sign.

It is not assault to question means of recruiting, nor is opining that he doesn't seem to coach it all that well.

But maybe you just meant assault as a colorful term.

Rock Chalk!

@drgnslayr

"...body scars from playing urban ball on chain nets and asphalt all summer..."

PHOF!

I start with the givens that Perry is a hard worker and he is intelligent.

From these givens, it follows that Perry is likely to follow slayr's advice (or come to it on his own) and bounce it through the asphalt jungle this summer some.

Does anyone recall Cole playing a game in the Rucker League in NYC? I have this vague recollection that he played there once and made some plays that got him some strokes, or something. Perry should go there, or Philly, or LA, WITH someone from their that knows the ropes and just play for two weeks. That would help him more than anything at this stage.

I really think there is a great player lurking inside Perry Ellis, not just a scorer, which he has already shown himself to be at times.

But there is a kind of spontaneity to his game that seems lacking and it is a kind of spontaneity that even the no talents on the playgrounds develop. The playgrounds are not helpful just because you get roughed up. Its the whole flipping fun of it, too. Its a fun way to play the game. And Perry has worked so hard at the game that sometimes he does not look like he is having enough fun at it.

I remember how much it seemed to help Jeff Withey just to travel with a Christian team over seas that one summer. Sometimes I think guys like Perry need to get out of the excellence rut and into the fun rut for a month or so. Find themselves. Find THEIR games, not just keep playing the game they've been taught.

The Designer is still The Designer.

He just needs a little tougher, and more spontaneous cut to his suit.

Just saw "The Jayhawkers" starring Jeff Chandler and Fess Parker. It was made in 1959, if I recall correctly, and directed by Melvin Frank, who was a decent director. See his credits below.

My Favorite Blonde (with Norman Panama) (1942) (Story Only)

Road to Utopia (with Norman Panama) (1946)

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (with Norman Panama) (1948)

White Christmas (with Norman Panama and Norman Krasna) (1954)

Knock on Wood (with Norman Panama) (1954) (also Co-Director)

The Court Jester (with Norman Panama) (1956) (also Co-Director)

Li'l Abner (with Norman Panama) (1959) (also Director)

The Facts of Life (with Norman Panama) (1960) (also Director)

The Road to Hong Kong (with Norman Panama) (1962)

Strange Bedfellows (with Norman Panama and Michael Pertwee) (1965) (also Director)

Not with My Wife, You Don't! (with Norman Panama, Peter Barnes and Larry Gelbart) (1966)

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (with Michael Pertwee) (1966)

Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (with Denis Norden and Sheldon Keller) (1968) (also Director)

A Touch of Class (with Jack Rose) (1973) (also Director)

Alas, the estimable Mr. Frank made a good looking, but incredibly boring movie out of "The Jayhawkers." It did not help that he was stuck with Fess Parker for a hero to Jeff Chandler's villain. The state of Kansas, and KU basketball, and the western film genre, deserves a better film than this.

If anyone knows a producer/director/writer team looking to make a western, please ask them to revisit the history of anti-slavery Jayhawkers, warts and all, and make a really good western that we can associate with the word "Jayhawk."

@drgnslayr

I'm still just in the hypothesizin' mode about all of this stuff. I'm just not smart enough to figure it all out.

Likewise, I'm not smart enough to figure out the ins and outs of who might, or might not, be feelin' pressure, beyond taking a wild guess at suspecting coaches may feel some, if the hypothesis were to prove to have any basis in fact.

Again, I'm just trying' to understand all of this stuff, as a fan. I'm not judging anyone, except maybe Auburn and Houston for passing over so many coaches old and young that have not had to sit out of D1, because the NCAA made a finding and kept them out.

I know. It could be that these two men are men of exceptional character despite being asked to leave the game for infractions. And I hope they are. But, dang, it sure seems like they got their shots and maybe now its time for some young guy without a record of infractions to get his shot.

Here is the cascade that always gets me wondering about things and occasionally making hypotheses to try to understand what may be going on.

1. In high school ShoeCos sponsor summer game teams.

2. In D1, ShoeCos sponsor schools and coaches.

3. After D1, ShoeCos sign certain players as they leave D1 for the pros to endorsement contracts.

This makes me wonder if there really are fully effective firewalls separating each of these steps?

But as always, I remain just a fan wondering.

And I remain a fan that has read "College Sports, Inc." by Murray Sperber, and "Raw Recruits" by Alexander Wolff and Armen Keteyian, and "Sole Influence" by Dan Wetzel and Don Yaeger, and wonder have things ever really been cleaned up?

One thing for sure: I hope the kids are not under the kind of pressure you are concerned about. But I have learned not to ignore your concerns over the years, either.

@VailHawk

Luv tuh splain tuh ewe, Vail.

No, NOT saying it is so. I am HYPOTHESIZING AND WONDERING COULD IT BE SO; that it seems counterintuitive for talent to CLUMP this way at certain schools without something beyond a coach's winning smile, an assistant's text messages and some tradition making the clumping happen, sometimes, but not others. Darnedest thing, don't you agree?

I mean, if a coach's smile, an assistant coach's text messages, and some tradition were all it took to make it rain clumps of draft choices, well, then a whole bunch of schools ought to get clumps of draft choices, and a whole bunch more ought not even get, oh, I don't know, even one draft choice, should they?

Maybe ewe got some splainin' tuh do, too!

I is all ears and uh seekin' tuh larn me something here, as always.

@HighEliteMajor

It seems not JUST about winning.

It seems more about winning FOR THE SHOE MAN.

I suspect the Chancellors, ADs and alums aren't putting any pressure on the coaches at the Elite Schools. Those schools are winning so regularly that they keep the arenas full and the TV contracts are fixed. The only player at the table that needs to do better than that is the SHOE MAN.

SHOE MAN's gotta win!

Ain't no other way to sell shoes, or sparkle the brand, of Superstar A, if he goes out second round. Ain't no branding haps there. Ain't nobody buyin' no shoes of Sir Hypealot parked at 30' protectin' the merchandize cuz the team can't bring rain in the finals. Gotta protect the merchandize, if you ain't gonna win nuthin'. But that ain't good enough uh outcome to keep stacking' a coach with preferred player stock.

I suspect the pressure now all comes from the ShoeCos, but that's just a hypothesis.

Think about just how rotten adidas might feel about how poorly KU did with Wiggins, Embiid and Selden in the Madness. adidas has to be asking themselves: would Wiggins, Embiid and Selden have done better with Pitino? Slick Rick got 'em a ring the year before. Imagine what Slick would have done last season, if KU three of a kind had been channelled to Slick'deville to go with what he already had.

IMHO Self is probably under XTReme pressure to make the Final Four this season. One more flame out with ShoeCo preferred stock and there might not be anymore ShoeCo preferred player stock. Self will be back to busting his tail for 3-4 year players and sloppy seconds on imploding programs.

I mentioned below that I suspect Stumpy Miller is probably on an even hotter seat. Whew! that team of his appeared to be stacked the last two seasons with guys a newbie from Xavier sure as heck wouldn't attract to Aridzona without some hep, if'n ya catch mah drift here.

And for what its worth, John Calipari probably does not have a ShoeCo Preferred Card indefinitely either.

The ShoeCos appear to be in a very, very high stakes game.

If they are stacking teams, as I hypothesize, they sure as heck are not going to look kindly on guys squandering gift sets of 3-5 first rounders in second round disappearances, like Self did, or even pretty deep, like Stumpy did.

My hypothesis for the reason they would stack two teams each season would to maximize their chances of winning a ring, and knocking out their competitor's one stacked team. Its not just about getting two stacked teams to the Final Four. Its about winning the Finals.

Just win, baby!

@justanotherfan

They are solid coaches, when they cheat, or so their encounters with the NCAA suggest.

But it remains to be seen what they can do the right way, because I for one cannot clearly discern when they were and were not cheating.

To the best of my recollection, I don't recall the NCAA telling Kelvin and Bruce, "Hey, guys, you know you were squeaky clean up until you made these two incredibly minor infractions that we overreacted to and gave you 5 years (or whatever it was) out of the game, Kelvin, and gave you Brucie 3 years (or whatever it was) out of the game." At least I don't recall them calling both coaches squeakily clean types and that each just made ridiculously minor errors. Or did they? :-)

The most interesting thing about both returning at the same time is that it makes me wonder: is there a ShoeCo, or two, in the background?

It will be interesting to see if each coach contracts with the same ShoeCo, or a different one.

It appears neither guy has a prayer of bringing in draft choices, or OADs, to those schools in this day and age, without ShoeCo hep, if my hypothesizin' were to have any basis in fact.

Here is a thought experiment.

If I were adidas trying to catch up to Nike, and feeling all warm and fuzzy about what LB did just appearing to give him one preferred stock player, well, I might sign them both up, especially after the way Self seemed to blow his hypothetical preferred stock in a second round out.

But if I were Nike, I would hypothetically be VERY disappointed with what Stumpy Miller has done with the hypothetically stacked deck Nike appeared to hand him.

My guess, hypothetically of course, would be that one, or both of these guys, if they were to sign with Nike, would hypothetically be going to get some of Stumpy's preferred stock to see if one of them might do better. Of course it is just a wild guess of a hypothesis. I have no insider info.

Stumpy appeared to me to have the most talent in the country last season. Even UK, which hypothetically speaking, Nike appeared to give a straight flush to did not have Stumpy's hypothetical Royal Flush. That was two straight years of Stumpy gagging on hypothetically preferred stock recruits, if the hypothesis were to hold water.

One can almost hear Sampson and Pearl being asked by the Cigarette Smoking Man, now out of the deep state/alien complex stuff and into deep sports puffing and saying: "If we load you up, can you at least get to the Finals? Oh,did I tell you both that your families are being kept in flying saucers in stationary orbit? Ah, so I did. Anyway, Auburn and Houston are out of the spotlight. Just do what you have to do. Mulder and Sculley are still asking the wrong questions, so we don't have to worry about their answers. And we don't have to worry about Thomas Pynchon's either. You're under the radar--both of you. Get it done. What the hell! If anyone gets onto you, Bruce, down at Auburn, we'll call in some IOUs from some crazy Austrians down at the Ludwig von MIses Institute. And down in Houston? Kelvin, we can always call the Fair Play for Cuba folks to pay a visit from New Orleans. I hear David Ferrie is still willing to work with the new face and identity we gave him. He's old, but he runs a strip joint down in Brownsville that keeps his blood pumping." :-)

I know, I know, I'm just having some fun here. There's nothing sinister going on. This is just D1.

@Crimsonorblue22

If he drops 10 lbs and gets his hops back, he will be a first team AA next year.

Houston could have hired a good, honest coach.

Auburn could have hired a good honest coach.

But instead both schools hired guys that have had to cheat egregiously just to get to 20 wins and a low seed in March.

New low in college hoops.

Think how many great young and old coaches--right way coaches--got passed over for these documented wrong way mediocrities.

Notice Tom Crean rebuilt Indiana without cheating.

Notice Tennessee doesn't have any joy ride packing heat arrests without Bruce around.

What is next at Auburn and Houston?

Hiring agent runners as directors of compliance? How about busting some ENRON execs out of the joint to handle financing?

Auburn and Houston = jokes.

Which SHOECO will sponsor these two?

Someone call George Raveling.

Next.

P.S.: decided to change the title of this post out of respect to sex workers.

@JayhawkRock78 Towle went to SM West.

@drgnslayr

I have it from a big time donor that Elon Musk's Space X has been secretly approached to move Allen Field House in numbered blocks and frame pieces to stationary orbit for enclosure within a vast geodesic Fuller Dome. Some wags inside the athletic department are already calling the domic future home of KU basketball Baja Tralfamadore. Field house seating will include lap belts for the zero G environment. The roof of AFH will be left off so that about 500,000 fans can hover weightless with in the confines of oxygenated dome to watch KU games from unprecedented angles. Space X will be paid handsomely for moving AFH into orbit and for its reassembly, while Space X will build a shuttle fleet for moving fans from the parking structure next to AFH's current location up to the orbiting AFH. The name for the dome around AFH will come from an auction with high bidder getting the first basketball facility in space named for him. It is not yet clear how games will be affected by zero G, but TV networks are reputedly excited about the prospects for more offense.

@globaljaybird

I just tried it and I can't do it. :-)

Alright, try "red leather, yellow leather" three times fast. :-)

@wrwlumpy

Yes, and I pulled a muscle doing it. :-)

@HighEliteMajor

If I understand Paul Biancardi, if KU had signed Paul Biancardi to replace Tharpe, Biancardi would also have been one of the five most important recruits.

Paul seems to be saying KU had XTReme Need.

I agree with Paul about the need.

And I agree that Devonte could conceivably shoot the trey better than CF's anemic 33% last season, and finish penetrations better the Frank Free Mason, but the gap between being "better" than either is a considerable distance away from being good enough to lead a team to a title and/or a ring, as a freshman.

(Note: I understand Tharpe lead a team to a title, but he did have the greatest perimeter prospect since Lebron James and the greatest center prospect of the last 5-10 years.)

I suppose the question is: does KU still have XTReme Need at point even after signing Mr. Almost Appalachian State to replace Naa Tharpe, who was once reputedly signed as sweetener to land Deandre whoever that never came and went to UConn instead?

Or can we expect Mr. Almost Appalachian State to simply beast on Mr. Almost Towson State (Frank Mason) and Mr. Wichita (Conner Frankamp)?

What the heck is Emmanuel Mudiay doing at KU, when he could have run the point at KU, won a ring and massively amped his exposure as an endorser?

Ah, fuggedaboutit! Its a beautiful day.

:-)

@SkinnyKansasDude

Now if we can just find and sign Hither Dunker and Thither Hops, we will have the Hither, Thither and Thon team!

@JayhawkRock78

Don't forget Steve Towle at LB. He went on and started for the Miami Dolphins. Great guy too.

@SkinnyKansasDude

He seems like a guy that would be a "maker" of shots!

Sign him early.

@truehawk93

We largely agree on the basketball coaching sandwich, but I want to restate the one single slice of Norm Roberts. Some may find slicing the caprese too think, but it is how I see it.

Norm Roberts is a terrific coach that should be a head coach. Roberts reputedly got a raw deal from the wrong way guys in New Yawk, or St. John's would probably be a powerhouse under him by now. Who can say for sure, but I suspect the fathers of St. John's apparently decided that it was bad strategy for them at that time to take on the wrong way types in the high school and summer games of New York and New Jersey, wherefrom St. John's has to depend so heavily on recruits, and wherein IMHO so many Catholic high schools might be meanly impacted by revenge taking by wrong way types at that time.

In a more just time, Roberts would probably still be head coach of St. Johns, or would at the least have had a reasonable time to have proven himself without his recruiting being tampered with. But we don't and he didn't.

Next, Roberts has admirably filled some big shoes left by Danny Manning. Our bigs have played as well as when Danny coached them, when one takes into account last season how green they were.

And Roberts found Embiid, while on staff at Florida under Donovan and changed jobs to KU and brought Embiid to Self's attention, and apparently was significantly responsible for landing him.

And Traylor improved sharply under Roberts last season.

And Roberts was apparently the one that finally figured out that if Black just kept his hands over his head that the refs would stop calling the fouls on Black under the new rules. At the very least, Roberts taught him how to do it.

So: I want board rats to recognize what an important contribution to KU's winning ways Coach Roberts has apparently made.

Having made the above defense, I also want to say that Coach Roberts certainly appears to have the character, skill, work ethic and fire to lead KU, as its head coach some day. And I do not see him as being too old to take on the job.

Where I do see a problem with Coach Roberts is that if he were to replace Self some day, were Self still riding high, Roberts would be unfairly caught in the situation so many good coaches have fallen into. Were he to replace Self tomorrow, he would be seen as Self's substitute, not as his own man and coach.

Following great coaches is never the problem. Self showed that a great coach can follow a great coach. The problem is how you follow them.

Self followed Roy as his own man, with his own distinct philosophy and game, and with his own established winning background. Even Self's early success could only be partially credited to Roy.

So many coaches, from Dick Harp following Doc Allen, to Guthridge following Dean Smith, to Hank Raymonds following Al Maguire, to Tubby Smith following Pitino, and so on have been largely undone by a problem.

The problem is: their success is attributed to the man they followed, and their failures are attributed to their not being the man they followed.

Had Self fallen into losing, he would most definitely have been s-canned for not being as good as Roy.

But when Self won, he was so different from Roy, and played such a different brand of ball, and his prior record was so strong, that his winning was rightfully attributed to him.

Norm Roberts would probably have to take the KU head job if it were ever offered to him while he were on staff, because it is a once in a lifetime chance, but I hope it never is, while he is an assistant. I hope he gets to go to an Illinois and build a good program, and then gets called back. And when the call comes, I hope he answers, because we will probably need him. And he seems a can do man of the kind I most admire.

But for his and KU's best interests, I hope he gets a head job elsewhere soon and so be in a position to have a fair chance of success, were he ever offered the head job at KU.

Nevertheless, my hunch is that Self and Roberts have made a tentative unwritten decision that Roberts will stay on staff as assistant and migrate to the pros with Self at some point. This hunch derives from Snacks being hired with the title of Assistant Head Coach. That title rightly should be Roberts, if he planned to take another head coaching job in college. It would help him get that next job. Since it isn't his, I suspect Self and Roberts and probably Townsend view themselves as a staff that will stay intact wherever Self goes, or stays. They obviously work well together and enjoy it. As one ages, and one grows less willing to put up with wolves at the door, such good things begin to matter quite a lot. Nothing is written, but some times at least a few notes may be taken.

Rock Chalk, Norm Roberts!

However things play out.

@JayhawkRock78

The ShoeCos actual influence, if any, remains all hypothetical and speculative so far IMHO. But, again, how often do you see significant monies being spent on a recurring basis on any organization by another organization without some influential benefit over it being hoped for? Further, it has been reputed among some that the ShoeCos spend a lot of sponsorship monies on the summer game and reputedly build relationships with players even before they get to colleges. What kind of relationships does not seem very clear yet. I have no idea what is actually going on. It does not appear that very many fans do. And actors inside the process do not seem to resolve much speculation about the situation. I am just saying that in the long history of college basketball, books like "College Sports, Inc.," by Murray Sperber, and "Raw Recruits" by Alexander Wolff and Armen Keteyian, and "Sole Influence" by Dan Wetzel and Don Yaeger seem to signal fans to be alert to the possibilities of this situation. And to echo your thought, let us hope nothing inappropriate has been occurring, or will be.

@Crimsonorblue22

ADs that avoid scandal and keep the fan base from rebelling at coaching performance can lose for a long, long time in the present situation, because such a large percentage of their revenue comes from TV and 50-70% football stadium seat sales probably means break-even or better. KU's rather profitable and prestigious basketball program makes being lousy at football acceptable, so long as the coach is amiable and half the influential alumni can enjoy his amiableness inspite of the losing. Charlie's real unwritten job description is not win. It probably is don't create a scandal and at the same time make the fans feel good about struggling to get better. He is doing that, so he is still a good hire from SZ's and CBernie's POVs. The minor sports are covered. The Feds and the NCAA are not snooping around. The influential alumni are resigned not to push winning at football so hard that they precipitate investigations. Life is tolerable. If the tail gating parties are fun, then that's all that really matters for awhile. Nobody, except about 10-20 programs, really cares about football outcomes. Its the party that matters. The feel good party keeps the donations trickling in and most university bureaucrats are probably about "development." There are programs that haven't won diddly squat in forever that are cruising along happily, because the autumn saturday tailgating is fun regardless. KU is in that holding pattern right now, while SZ slowly, safely tries to get the stadium improvements lined up without having to get in trouble with the rules doing so. I guaranty you this KU bureaucracy was XTRemely chastened by Federal investigators looking deep into the program. NCAA inquiries for small infractions is sort of anticipated once every ten years or so. But no Chancellor and AD want Federal investigators feeling the need to investigate you; that sort of thing ends bureaucratic careers. CBernie probably realizes she was very luck to survive scalping gate. Very lucky. Somewhere in her secret diary it probably reads "NEVER AGAIN."

Regarding SZ finding a top basketball coach, over the years KU has found them with ADs, or faculty pressed into the search, or what have you. It is not hard to recognize a top candidate. It is hard to stop the parochial infighting of the factions at KU to let the best candidate be hired. But over the years, KU has loved its basketball enough to let great candidates be hired. The same of course cannot be said in football. Their parochial infighting for getting "my guy" in there seems to take precedence. And so it is rather more unpredictable whether a great candidate will be hired, regardless of salary IMHO.

@REHawk

Oh, yes, REHAWK, there really are a few things you can depend on in life. Death, taxes, and oligarchs and corporations investing heavily and expecting influence.
:-)

@icthawkfan316

If QA were to become a deciding factor, then Joe Dooley would be become a must have head coach. It was pretty clear last season that the difference between 26 wins and 30 could easily have been having some one on staff savvy at finding fresh, statistically significant vulnerabilities in an opponent that had not previously been exploited. Last seasons approach was clearly based on brute force probabilities, rather than on fresh, subtle statistical exploits as in the past. At first it seemed more attributable to youth than Dooley's absence, but by season's end, it was clear there just were no new exploits being found. Tons of basketball coaching and recruiting experience on the bench, but not enough QA brain power. If I were Self, I would get my butt over to the hard sciences departments and find some QA types and get on this problem. If you can find a guy with ball experience it's ok, but not necessary. The key is lack of bias in grinding numbers.

P.S.: Have to expand on this just a bit. A QA guy will not ice you a W in any single game, because he is in the business of finding probabilistic tendencies. In the moment, there is no substitute for a great strategic basketball mind operating on feel for the game and the moment. But what the QA guy will do for you is simply increase the probability over a 40 game season of a great basketball coach being in a position to make an IMPACT move.

All non-QA persons tend to be afraid of QA and discounting of QA persons' inputs, because of their lack of understanding of the assumptions, models, accuracy and robustness of the modeling being done. This fear, based usually not in an inability to learn QA, but rather in having not commited to doing so, leads them not to know when it is appropriate to rely on it, and when the intuitive, nonlinear insights of a good and experienced basketball mind ought to prevail. The result is a reduction of confidence and effectiveness in use of both types of decision drivers.

Alternatively, great QA persons often become so seduced by the yeasty, unexpected insights of stochastic interpretation of real processes that they either lose, or never gain, the capacity for intuitive, nonlinear strategic decision making that can transcend both tendencies and situations.

There was probably a great synergy in having a Bill Self working with a Joe Dooley. Self knew when he needed an edge on which end of the floor, and Dooley was probably very good at grinding numbers to find one that other more heuristic approaches had not yet tried.

But the ultimate would be to have a Bill Self and a Joe Dooley working for a head coach already having both strengths within himself.

What made John Wooden so extraordinary for his time was that he was excellent for his time in the following nine ways.

1. Superb intuitive nonlinear decision maker in the heat of battle.

2. One of the best QA guys of his time. Wooden was among the first to systematically generate statistics for each aspect of the game. He was not a wholistic QA type, however, i.e., he did not reduce the game to models, which is simulation modelling, which is strongly in vogue the last 30 years in all fields. He was
   just looking for empirically based measures of effectiveness is individual skills. So: his level and type of proficiency is probably not sufficient for today.

(Note: Hopefully, the world will over the next half century go through detox on simulation modeling to some degree, or make a methodological breakthrough that makes it less prone to subjectivity of the researcher. Simulation modeling has become vastly subject to modeler biases, because it is globally nonparametric modeling and so susceptible to data and relationship disconnects from reality, either because of unintentional human bias, or active human cunning. For example, the reason we are in such a predicament about climate change is that our climate scientists, who are doing their best, are nevertheless combining inferential statics from long past when there is a lot of potential for measurement error and time series error and error from inadequate randomization of measurement, even though they don't like to admit it, with simulation models of nonlinear climate systems that they still do not sufficiently understand the dynamics of. This leads to massive error in their predictions of global cooling in the 1980s-90s and global warming in the 2000-14 era. It leads them to say first global cooling, then global warming and then the practically meaningless and empirically and logically ambiguous term of "global climate change." We live in the age of the nonparametric simulation model. It is an extremely treacherous scientific time. It is a time when science's quantitative credibility can be cleverly misused to serve opposite agendas both ways, without a verifiable empirical AND logically unbroken break crumb trail to refute them on much of the time. Long ago we left behind lies, damn lies,and statistics. That old saying referred to a time of the possible misuse of parametric statistics. That was nothing compared to today's nonparametric age of simulation modeling. In parametric statistics, it was at least always feasible to sort through the analyses and find where the assumptions were violated and where methodology was not followed. Today, the problem is that nonparametric simulation models are essentially problem solving improvisations only anecdotally supported by parametric statistical inferences regarding certain assumptions being fed into the nonparametric simulations and so there is no objective, causal logic operating globally in much modeling analysis justifying any acceptance with high confidence at all. There is largely systematized best guessing going on that is invariably filtered through the undiscounted biases of scientists tending to find what they are looking for by the way in which they devise the methodologies to look with. But I digress.)

1. Charismatic and inspirational capacity to highly focus and motivate players toward competitive greatness consistently.

2. A great manipulator of referees.

3. High capacity for keeping track of detail

4. Bureaucratic insight.

5. Media cool. (Great characters and fiery geniuses invariably come into conflict with the media. As media coverage intensifies, a media cool personality becomes imperative. Wooden's approach to the media probably would be allowed today. He denied all reporters access to his players. Period. But his humble, neutrality and English high school teacher demeanor worked great. So does Self's playful amiability and humility. Coach K's military proper and graciousness and refusal to engage in serious discussion works well. Bob Knight's fiery genius makes him a target. Frank Martin's outbursts do too. Media cool is always the best long term strategy for a coach. And throw quotes preplanned quotes to media like throwing dogs a bone.

6. Hard worker.

7. Problem solver with resilience to failure.

These are the nine personality/skill things that should be looked for in any great head coach. And all can be found combined in reasonable abundance among candidates, except for the combination of great nonlinear strategist and great QA type.

Frankly, if I were Bill Self and were still serious about getting better, I would be using some of that huge salary of his to hire his own personal tutor to turn him into a QA stud himself. It would not be so that he could grind the numbers himself, but so that he could better pick an assistant and collaborate with him, as he did with Dooley, to make that aspect of the staff's capability and even bigger edge. And if he did not want to change any current assistants, then he should put Snacks to work with a QA Tutor 24/7 to turn him into the next great coach with both skill sets, assuming he has the other qualities already.

Never too old to get better, Bill.

Rock Chalk!

Suggestion: ShoeCo connections probably drive future hires at elite programs.

Hypothetical 1: The hire has to be pre-connected with a SHOECO ready to stack his program with 2-3 OADs per year. Hire has got to be able to deliver OADs immediately. Example: Mid major coach does well with SHOECO sloppy seconds, builds trust with a SHOECO, and SHOECO then brokers deal in background with university for his hire.

Hypothetical 2: SHOECO contracted with school gives school a list of three acceptable hires it is willing to supply talent to.

The point is that the entity that could deliver the top recruits logically would have a rather large say in hiring a coach.

@Wigs2

This seems the bare minimum of change needed. Thanks for saying it well.

@wissoxfan83

We already have an incredible asymmetry among haves and have nots, do we not?

So: what is wrong with kids with money mixing with kids that do not have it? Public universities have always been a place where the haves and have nots rub up against each other. It did not bother me that Brady Morningstar's pop was affluent and Tyrel's dad was just a high school coach. Poor college players have always rubbed up against rich alums. Heck, I can remember on my high school football team the star's dad was bucks up and the kid drove a Shelby Mustang, when most of us didn't even have cars. I blocked just as hard for the rich kid as I did his poor back up. I wish things were more equitable. I've been down and up myself. But this recent gaping maw of disparity is the reality of life in USA now. The biggest upward reconcentration of wealth since the age of the robber barons is already 15 years as status quo. It is the hideous fact of how life is. America has an inheritance aristocracy.

Did it bother you that Andrew Wiggins was about to have millions and was the son of a father that made some buck in the NBA, while playing with Jamari Traylor, who had once lived in abandoned cars and will have to have some luck to make it in European ball.

Dissension? It seems to me that there would already be a lot of dissension about wealth disparities, if there were ever going to be. I mean Bill Self probably makes around $5-10 M bucks per year with salary and shoe contracts and camps and investment fund yields. And he is coaching players that are often from abject poverty. He reputedly lives in a 24,000 sf house and the players live in those cracker boxes at Jayhawker Towers and probably think they are a big step over where they came from. Even the assistants are dressed out to the nines making to much to take regular jobs instead.

Confusion about turnover? I was never confused by turnover last season. I was confused by why they played so poorly so much of the time. It has never confused me when a professional sports team made a three sided trade at deadline involving a bunch of players. Actually, I have always been kind of excited by trades. The often promise new hope.

Coaching changes? Which is worse? Having them change, or worrying about them changing all the time, which is what everyone does now?

The bottom line for me is D1 left the kind of college model I was fond of. So: I have tried this new model, even the deluxe OAD version that we at KU are lucky enough to try to participate in, and it leaves me cold. I don't believe there is any going back. And I find standing still to be a prescription for further hollowing out and death of D1.

I feel right now a bit like Thomas Jefferson and other founders of the country must have felt after trying to get the Crown of Great Britain and the British Parliament to make some very small changes for a couple of decades so that the Commonwealth could go on, only to learn that neither the British Monarchy, nor the British Parliament wanted to bring us into their game.

I feel that neither the NBA, nor the NCAA, after a long time trying to make things work with both of them, have basically said, we've got a pretty good deal, and its just too bad about the rest of you colonials. We could make this more sensible and more equitable, but we're not, because WE DON'T HAVE TO.

It was around this time that Benjamin Franklin, long an advocate of staying in the Commonwealth more or less said to the Virginians and others,well, I guess you were right all along about these Brits. Let's strike out on our own he told his colleagues; that is the time we all maybe be approaching in basketball.

Hamilton tossed in somewhere along the way that we've got the center point right here in North America that everyone needs to control maritime trade in the New World. And if we play our cards right, we will shortly control Pacific trade too. Let's get on with it.

I'm not sure who the influential founders of our time in basketball would be, but maybe its time for them to think about some of the above.

Once upon a time, TJeff got on with Writing the Declaration of Independence.

And things changed.

They really changed.

@DoubleDD

When confronted by assault on our game from all sides, we ought first define our universal principles. Our duty is to choose them widely, define them well, and then act in accordance with them in the face of the challenges great and small.

The universal principle (IMHO): In college basketball, administrators, coaches, players, and fans have certain inalienable rights endowed by their creator; these are life, liberty and the pursuit of getting better.

Thus whatever set of institutions and regulations can accomplish this best is what we should agree upon and so constitute and then apply all available resources toward accomplishing.

Getting better involves maximizing (or at least satisficing) the opportunity to compete with and against those chancellors, ADs, coaches and players most likely to enable the individual and the basketball player coach, AD and chancellor to get better.

Under our current institutions, we appear to be being subordinated by the NBA, which we have no representation in. That is a kind of tyranny.

And our NCAA, which was constituted by prior generations to organize and promote amateur sports in general has apparently ceased to act toward basketball in ways that enable all individuals involved to pursue their inalienable right of life, liberty and getting better.

We have gotten to this point by adhering to a late 19th Century ideology of amateurism (notice the -ism attached to amateur for it is a dead give away of an ideology, not a universal principle) that over time has begun to obstruct the inalienable right to pursue getting better. It has permitted the NBA to exploit our outdated ideology of amateurism. And it has let the NCAA turn its original reputed function of acting as a guardian of the integrity of amateurism and of the amateur game of basketball into becoming a broker of the game to media, while reputedly underfunding its function of regulatory oversight, and so creating a context where free pursuit of getting better can only really freely occur among a precious few. not the many. It is not a sign of either liberty, or fairness.

Thus, it is valid, fitting and beneficial to all to reconstitute the D1 game across the board according to the universal principle as stated above (or whatever other better one can be agreed upon), so as to maximize the freedom and opportunity for all to pursue getting betting and to use all the fantastic sums of money being attracted into the game for the purpose of enabling that pursuit of getting better first and foremost, not as money to fatten up a relative few that appear unable to act widely in service of the inalienable rights.

We should not reconstitute D1 as just a minor league of the NBA, or other professional league, for THAT is what D1 has already become, and is what we should be trying to move beyond.

What we should seek is to raise D1 beyond being just a minor league for the NBA subsidized by government and tax-reducing donors, and manipulated indirectly by the NBA. D1 must be free at last.

We should in fact view the D1 basketball programs as basketball institutes that are the sporting equivalent of policy generating institutes in business and government.

There should be undergraduate teams and graduate teams. Maybe even faculty/career teams. Careers in political and enterprise institutes can just as easily be ends in themselves, rather than stepping stones, but they can of course be stepping stones too. The same should be true of epistemic institutes of basketball.

Just as a professional in government may choose to work in government, or in a policy institute generating policy for government and parties, so a basketball player, coach, or AD, should be able to choose whether to work in professional leagues, or in epistemic leagues developing players and basketball knowledge for the game. Just as a business man should be able to choose whether to work in business, or in institutes of business and economics, while being a paid professional in either, basketball players, coaches and ADs should be able to choose between working in professional leagues, or in epistemic leagues, as a paid professional in either.

We do not expect politicians, or executives, that leave government, or business, to work in 501.C3 epistemic institutes to become amateurs. And we do not prevent them from working in professional capacities in government and business and then deny them and society the benefits of them returning to such epistemic institutes in their fields of expertise. It is patently absurd that we let an archaic ideology of amateurism prevent professional basketball players from coming back to epistemic basketball.

"...life, liberty and the pursuit of getting better..." Degree of service to these inalienable rights is proper criterion for judging those individuals and organizations involved with running D1.

Reinstituting the game according to truly universal principles is long overdue.

Let's get on with it.

Reason is sweet.

And time is still of the essence.

If we don't, the NCAA might eventually cut a deal with Occulist Rift and turn D1 into a virtual reality game with no bio-players, coaches, or ADs at all. It may take quite awhile, but judging from their genuflective reshapings of the game for radio, TV, and internet in the past, the awesome power of the virtual, and its deep learning technology, seem likely to rush them to embrace it. It would make setting betting spreads so much less risky. :-)

If we don't get on with it, the NBA might cannabalize the D1 game and then clear it from its wake.

The business of the game appears to be rapidly reducing to being a stimulant for the global economic expansion of the petro apparel industry; i.e., of using the endorsement power of sport in media to migrate as many folks around the globe from cotton, linen, and silk to rayon and polyester, and whatever else future chemists can think of to make out of oil, as we migrate off burning the stuff. Wearing the shizz, especially when it is chemically engineered to wear out quickly, and when styles are changed monthly, and when we are talking global market demand, is a near essential way (but hardly the only way) to absorb the rising surplus of oil, as hybrids and electrics and fuel cells leave the suck-squeeze-bang-blowers behind.

If nerdy Elon Musk can build a better electric than all the internal combustion cars on his second try, one can only infer that internal combustion technology has long been obsolete and only been kept in dominant market share by producer oligopoly constraints imposed by a regime of car and oil companies trying desperately to work off sunk costs and plan for how to control the migration to yet another oligopoly they control.

Petro threads and petro food. Its the only way other than 24/7 war to sustainably soak up the crude oversupplies we are awash in. And though the governments beholden to big cars and bigger oil and biggest of all private central bank owners, are doing their best to burn as much oil as they can in wars by fusing up as many hot spots as possible, war just is a lot riskier way to soak up the oversupply.

D1 should not be a minor league.

D1 should be an independent player at the table.

Heck, if D1 played its reinstitution cards correctly, with the enormous advantages it holds in subsidies, it could one day take over the NBA.

D1 is 340 some teams that could expand to twice or three times that many at the stroke of a keyboard typed agreement.

D1 is frankly the center point in the strategic game being played, not the NBA.

D1 just needs to do a better job in the major TV markets of New York, Boston, and so on. But that is another story.

Rock Chalk!

First, let any player, college, or high school, jump to professional basketball at any age without any restrictions at all. They can jump anytime. Even during a season.

Second, let any professional player with any of his five potential years of college eligibility remaining, return to D1 any time and play for any team without any restrictions.

Third, let any college player jump to any other college team anytime during the season even up to before the NCAA Finals.

Fourth, let any coach move any time to any team, even for just the last game of a season.

Turn player and coach movement from something we are trying to constrain into something liberalized and encouraged in order to create the best basketball teams with the best coaches.

The ShoeCos already appear to be stacking certain teams with talent. Let take it and run with it instead of resisting it.

Let's even let coaches and teams make trades dying the season.

Let's prepare the players for professional basketball life, and let's let players riding the bench at one school, jump to other schools.

We are already at the point that I am cheering not for the players, because there is so much turnover. I am cheering for the team.

Full D1 deregulation, full freedom for players and coaches.

I would even like to let the schools and ShoeCos and NBA franchises be allowed to make deals to pay players whatever the ShoeCos, schools and NBA franchises want to pay the players. No limits on money. Every deal is an agreement between the player and which ever schools, franchises and shoecos he can get interested in him.

The only thing guarantied the players is tuition and books, room and board and five years of eligibility.

Deregulation would make every second of the season suspenseful. At any moment, a team could lose a star. A coach could jump. Stars, rotation backups, and practice players might shift at any moment. Complexity would ramp up dramatically. Every moment of the season would become potentially strategic.

And no I'm not kidding about this.

I really think unrestrained market dynamics would catapult the game out of its current status of being an abused step child of the NBA and the inadequately policed joke of the NCAA.

Finally, reduce the NCAA to three employees. One brokers National TV deals. Another uses KenPom stats to seed a tournament with a seeding program in seconds. Another works on rules and liaison with conference supervisors of officials. No more investigations. No more verifications of transcripts. Any kid can come to college anytime, if the college can figure out a way to keep him eligible. The player has to maintain a D average in four courses per semester to stay eligible. No need to waste resources on preventing morons from playing, when ways are always found to let morons play.

One more thing: let schools hold auctions among private oligarchs in which the high bidder gets the schools open and above board commitment to politic in state government on behalf of the winning private oligarch in the bidding. The Chancellor, AD and HC actually openly campaign for the private oligarch's political economic agenda.

Let the goose that lays the golden eggs start laying platinum ones.

Let's really take college basketball to the next level. Let's make it so profitable to players that few can afford to jump and even those that do can be attracted back from the NBA unless they do really well.

D1 could be expanded from 340 some schools to as many colleges as there are that want to play the game in the deregulated format.

Several great teams would emerge every season.

More talent would be available for college basketball every season.

Maybe even extend the period of eligibility from 5 years to 12 years to enable players to pursue
graduate degrees.

Rock Chalk!!!!

"Change, change, it will do you good!!!"
--Sheryl Crow

@DoubleDD

Thoughts and ideas and questions often perk up at nearly the same time and yet independently of each other among persons. Erwin Schroedinger and a young American physicist reputedly came up independently with definitive formalizations of quantum theory independently within a few weeks of each other. Schroedinger just happened to get recognized as being first, when it was probably a tie. Some even say the American was first. It hardly matters. Many others were nearing solutions too, and all were standing on the shoulders of others.

@Crimsonorblue22

Yes, it's strange how these rationales are said often and one wonders about them without asking; then one day the wondering perks up into a question.

Lots of wonderings are like this, I suppose.

@VailHawk

Are you suggesting you are Svia's father? And are you alluding to the wallet busting cost of living in Vail? If so, congratulations on your son's scholie and new KU playing career!!!

@HighEliteMajor

Thanks. Do you see anything in those restrictions prohibiting a booster, or non booster, from hiring a player's parent willing to move to Lawrence to work a job after the player enrolls? It did not leap out at me. Odd that it would not be discussed rather explicitly, if it were categorically a violation.

Sometimes, when a young college player goes to the pros early, the reason given is that his family needs the money; this was said frequently about Ben McLemore's parent.

I used to accept this reasoning sympathetically.

But then it occurred to me: why are some poor parents of players able to come to Lawrence, where jobs appear to be fairly plentiful for parents of players, and work jobs for from 1 to 5 years, but other parents of players are for some reason too poor even to come and work such jobs?

The logic escapes me.

What gives here?

Why could, say, Marcus and Markieff Morris' mother come from Philadelphia, where she and her sons reputedly once lived in abject poverty, and work a job while the Twins were here, but, say, Ben McLemore's mother could not?

I don't mean to be critical of Ben's mother here, or even focus on her in particular either.

I am just trying to understand this situation a bit better.

Is it that certain parents of certain players are drunks, or junkies, or otherwise so disabled, that they are incapable of working jobs in Lawrence?

Or are there just some poor parents that refuse to work a job and demand their sons jump so they, the parents, can get a nice house without having to work? Surely it is not this.

Perhaps someone that understands the ins and outs of recruiting and of getting jobs for players' parents can clear this up?

Has there been a change in recruiting rules that prevents alumni from hiring player's parents while they are at a college on scholarship to play basketball?

Very curious about this?

@justanotherfan

I don't know ANY of the pro teams well enough this year to say who needs what, so there is no point to my remarking globally on your rankings.

So I will just remark on the players themselves.

Aaron Gordon really impressed me in the NCAA tournament and I would take him ahead of Randle. I want that guy on my team.

Gary Harris seems a little low to me. Its tough being a PG at MSU, because Ratso loads up with thugs that can't shoot, so there's no one to look very good passing to. But I think Harris could blossom in the league.

Stauskas I would drop from the list. I have watched the guy repeatedly and I frankly don't see why he should go in the first round, much less in the lottery. But I don't doubt that you have weighed the supply of guys at his position and concluded its a thin crop and he's what there is for anyone that needs a trey gun at the two.

Wiggins to me is a serious crap shoot. He's such a mediocre trey shooter, so one handed, and exhibited so little toughness, that he seems to have "high risk" all over him. At the same time, he has that ridiculous physical ability and was apparently sand bagging a lot of the season to minimize injury risk, so it would come down for me to what he was willing to show in work outs. If he wouldn't work out, and show me what he could do against one of my really good perimeter players, I would pass on him. If he worked out and whipped my best perimeter player I would take him number one. I really think who ever drafts him, he is likely to be traded to Toronto, because Toronto is the best marketing tie in to the British Empire, and that's were his real endorsing value lies. And Toronto is most likely to be tolerant of his 2-3 year development time line, after which he could be the greatest player of the decade in the NBA, or a minor player. Again, he's really a weird one to try to predict. Never heard of a great NBA star that had such an ordinary season in college with so many big holes in his game.

Embiid is another high risk undertaking, but his footer athleticism would make me willing to take the risk with a Number one, if his back were fully recovered. But man, if he wouldn't work out for me either, I would not sleep well taking him, even though I would take him. Embiid is potentially the greatest athletic freak in the NBA of the next ten years. But even if he doesn't fully develop, he is at the very worst a ten year journeyman center that allows you to plough your cash into superstars at 1-4.

Parker? He can play and so you've got to take him high if he's available, but unlike, Embiid soon, or Wiggins later, who are capable of transforming a team, I see Parker as a good piece to fit into an existing puzzle, rather than a team transformer.

Don't recall Vonieh or Exum and Young enough to comment.

Randle did not win me over. But wherever you take him, he'll stick and be worth having around.

Your dog hunts...if Sviatslov signs and the long guards can guard short guards. It hunts intermittently if the long guards find a lot of situations where they cannot guard the short guards.

Short guards are going to become more prevalent, rather than less, with the rules changes favoring the offensive perimeter player. There just are a lot more short guards to sign and play at any given time, so if their shortness is made less of a disadvantage by rules changes, more play.

In the age of the trey, with tight calls favoring offense, pretty much anyone of any height can offend on the perimeter, if he has a 40% trey, ambidexterity on the dribble, and a quick first step. With those three things, he can penetrate for a two and a FT virtually every play, when not drilling the trey; this was the Wisconsin Lesson of last season. After burners, like Mason's, are optional now. The three's the thing. It creates the space necessary for even a average driver to get a shoulder by his man and go and exploit the favorable whistle for the offense. Conner, if he can get his trey sighted to 40% has as much athleticism as any of the Wisconsin lead guards last season including their point guard, who was actually NOT at all a Tyshawn Taylor on the drive, just slightly above average on in the X-axis speed department.

In the age of the trey, with tight calls favoring offense, offense reduces to finding a point guard and two wings that can each shoot 40% plus from deep. Teams that can field three such players with a rim protector and rebounding power forward are the gold standard.

Imagine last year's Wisconsin perimeter with a 5-star four last season. It would have been an undefeated ring season for Wisconsin. Even with stiffs for 4s, they made it to the Semifinals.

So: how does this relate to your post and Self's desire to sign Sviatslov?

At the very least, Self, the savant of matching up, wants to be able to field a perimeter of 3 40% trifectates to match up with teams that do that.

More likely, though, Self just gets that the rules changes are here to stay for a few years and three, 3PT perimeter shooters are king until the rules change again.

In turn, this means that Frank Mason's PT, magnificent speed demon though he is, is likely to come from spelling Frankamp the Trifectate PG in situations where going long at point to keep three trey ballers on the perimeter is not feasible due to defensive vulnerability.

Signing Sviatslov means Self can keep three trey ballers on the perimeter for as long as he likes. Selden (assuming his knee heals and permits him to ascend to 40%--a reasonable possibility), Greene (assuming he gets under control), CF (assuming he can get his shot off for 40% accuracy), and Sviatslov (assuming he is strong and quick footed enough to guard and offend in D1), are four credible trey ball threats. Four means Self can, if defensive abilities permit, basically keep three trey ballers on the perimeter all game long, which is the new killer app of the game.

(Note: well, it is not really new, is it? Lute Olsen's Arizona ring team with Bibby, Miles Simon, and I forget the third trey dinger proved that it worked like a charm back in helmet hair's day.)

And with Mason, Self has the flexibility to matchup short at any guard position, when needed; that is Mason's real, and not insignificant function on next year's team. As a result, while I agree with you on your rotation, and assessment that Mason may be farther down the PT food chain this season, I don't see much likelihood of him redshirting, unless he just can't cut it academically, in which case he would almost certainly not be redshirted and transfer end of season.

Of course there is one possibility that neither of us has considered so far. Frank, arguably a very hungry guy from the streets with more than a little moxie and drive to to get as far as he has, could read the writing on the wall, and start shooting 400 treys a day between now and October 15, and wind up with a 40% trey gun himself. Mario Chalmers made himself into a 40% guy once upon a time. It can be done, though it is rare.

Imagine this team with Frank as a credible trey threat on the perimeter. It could keep three 40% trifectates on the perimeter 40mpg, AND matchup short or long.

Hmmmmm, now that's a thought to savor.

There is one more wild card in all of this and his first name is Devonte. I fall into the camp that suspects he probably is NOT going to be an impact player, despite expressed Selfian enthusiasms. I suspect this because of recruiting rank, because of Appalachian State, because of thinness, because of an all right-handed highlight feed, and because of the seemingly implied swap that occurred to free the team from Tharpe and so perhaps Tharpe and Self from having to live with the selfie and Tharpe's limitations. To shed Tharpe, and still stay in the preferred recruiting line at the Brewster basketball factory, er, academy, it at least appears that Self might have taken Devonte, even if Devonte were a sight-challenged, little person with two left foot prosthetics. I cannot forget just how enthusiastic Self was about Royce Woolridge, Naadir Tharpe, and so discount somewhat his remarks about how much better KU got by signing him. I also cannot forget how more highly ranked players like Tyrell Reed and Conner Frankamp and EJ and Travis Releford could not really contribute much their freshman seasons, not just because of players ahead of them, but because of real limitations in their stages of development. I would even go so far as to say it is unlikely Devonte will be an impact player next season.

But there are the occasional Kevin Young and Frank Mason types that are hungry, gritty types beyond intimidation, either by Self, or opposing teams, that Self occasionally finds rotation minutes for just because of their toughness and a shortage of returning tough, gritty talent.

If Devonte were a particularly tough customer, and if he were able to pot the triceratop at 38-40%, and if he could guard and protect, well, then heck yes, he could get in the rotation, because god always favors another ball handler at the point. But those are one heckuva lot of ifs. And it wouldn't take much improvement by Conner and Frank to make Devonte an obvious choice for throwing a rouge Italian smoking jacket, especially with the crowding created by Sviatslov possibly signing.

Ah, the off season. It is a time when all hopes and all doubts are possible, and the harsh realities of "who can get her done" awaits in a misty future full of unforeseeable outcomes.

@drgnslayr

Regarding what UK fans are willing to put up with...

"I can't believe this. All the money we pay these boys, and they still can't get my defense right."
--Adolph Rupp, quoted in "Raw Recruits: The High Stakes Game Colleges Play to Get Their Basketball Stars--And What It Costs to Win" by Alexander Wolff and Armen Keteyian (published by Pocket Books Division of Simon and Schuster, 1st Hard Cover Printing, April, 1990)

@drgnslayr

Your POV on this issue comes closest to mine and it is explained better than I could have done in the part that you covered.

@drgnslayr

Thank you so much for posting this link to Wilt's interview in One on One.

First, off, Devonte Graham played on a great high school team with so many D1 bound players that opponents almost certainly could not scheme to stop him. They had to focus on others. So: Graham, like Tharpe before him has never been schemed against in high school and so will be, like Tharpe, overwhelmed when opposing coaches can focus on him. In contrast, Frankamp and Mason reputedly were option one on their high school teams and faced scheming every game they played. So: whatever else may be said about Graham, regardless of his rating rising, or falling, he would be overwhelmed by scheming, if Self were to start him, and so Tharpe and Mason don't have to worry about being bumped out of starting, if either of them round out their games enough to be starters. And if they don't, then the next logical choice is to put Selden on point, Frankamp at two, and back up Selden with Mason and Frankamp with Graham, because Graham can supposedly pot the triceratop. Backing up at the two would let Graham develop slowly the first half of the season, and if Graham can't adjust to D1 speeds his first season, well, then Self just has to slow it down to a walk and go with a three guard rotation of Selden, CF and Mason, each of them taking turns at the point and turns at the two.

One thing in Graham's favor: he looks like a baby...unlike Frank Mason and CF who look like a couple of 23 year old sailors on shore leave.Graham has a baby face. And he is, despite the nonsense about him being able to body on defense, a very skinny kid. Some babies grow up. He could grow up over the summer. But more likely he will grow up the following summer. By the end of the season, if he looks grown up, then he's a lock to stay, no matter what the cat drags in for recruits. But at the end of his second season, if he is still baby faced and slender, then he's a transfer, because Self will rustle up at least two top position specific guards and one combo. That will leave no room for Graham. And not to sound like a broken record but Devonte's high light reel doesn't show in left handed highlights; that means defenders will be standing on his right side and saying, "There! There's the basket to my left, your right." And he will be whipping the ball around the perimeter faster than you can say, "NOT AMBIDEXTROUS."

Mason and Frankamp look like locks to me. And they might make quite a backcourt combination, if CF can carry another 10-15 and drain treys at 45%. Hell, Self might even introduce him to his scalp doctor and get him some plugs.

The guy we are really hurting for is the guy everyone foolishly dissed: Milton Doyle. Milton is the length that needed to be rotated in during certain games to make a Mason/CF duo viable when the opposing guards got long from time to time.

Self is a genius at bringing in guys he will eventually have a need for down the road. His problem is he cannot convince them to stick around long enough to make use of them.

Regarding Selden not improving greatly, I have to respectfully disagree all the way out the Van Allen Belts. Selden with working shocks is a lottery pick IMHO. There is probably a better than even chance that Selden's knees will get better and that Hudy burn of his baby fat. Ten pounds lighter and Wayne Selden becomes an absolute terror in tennies. His only weaknesses were weak trey and a long, but slow first step. A good knee and ten less pounds will resolve both issues. When he's not fat, and has two good shocks, he will go up faster and farther and so be able to shoot a much higher percentage, AND create more space to shoot the muthah!

Oubre is a hard call. Nobody in recorded history college basketball ever had three long steps that let him dunk from anywhere past half court. So, no, Oubre is not going to match that. Oubre wasn't much of a trinitarian in high school, but there have been more than a few guys his size that could shoot the trey, but didn't because their high school team needed them within dunking distance. Back in the dark ages, Lucious Allen never took more than a few long Js at Wyandotte High, but then turned into a dead eye from outside at UCLA and the NBA. During Madness, Chuckie Barkley said he couldn't really stroke the trey in college and realized he had to learn to do it in the NBA to stay in the NBA. Magic Johnson was a brick laying free mason from outside at Michigan State, then was the same a couple seasons in the L, before committing to mastering a set shot for three that he became very deadly with.

Oubre?

Oubre said in one interview that he felt he could become an excellent outside shooter, if Self asked him to work on it. I gotta believe that Ben Mac and Oubre are working very, very hard on three point shooting together this summer. BenMac lost his accuracy in the L and has to get it back. And he needs someone Oubre's size to work on it against. And, well, Ben is still the sweetest shooting trey stroker I have seen at KU, so the man could teach Oubre, if anyone could.

Further, Oubre at least appears more aggressive than Wiggins did except in a couple games when he was trying to turn it on to get back up in the draft rankings. Having a seriously aggressive 3 would be a nice change of pace. But we learned indisputably last year from Wigs that OADs won't go hard to iron for half, or two thirds of a season, in order to protect the merchandize for draft day. If Oubre decides follow the same approach to playing that Wigs did, well, Oubre better have a trey gun, and some serious hops, or KU will have real trouble at the trey. But my hunch is that Oubre is a leave it all on the floor type.

One last thing about Oubre: he maybe almost as good as Wiggins, and by playing harder than Wiggins did, he may even approach doing as well as Wiggins did, but he may not look as good doing it. Why? Because Oubre is not going to be being backed up by one of the greatest athletes to play the 5 in quite some time: Embiid. Because there is not Embiid, Oubre could conceivably score MORE than Wigs did much of the season. But it kinda depends on whether any of our 5 get the scoring bug.

My dark horse to do more than anyone expected he could is Traylor. Dr. Frankenself seemed to have elevated Traylor up to the top of Allen Field House and got him bolted by lightening a few times down the stretch. Traylor actually showed some offensive drives and a J. Here's the impossible claimed possible. Jamari changes the spelling of his last name to Trey-lor and becomes a legitimate stretch 4.

In conclusion, I think there will be enough minutes for most.

@drgnslayr

"Jetron the hypersimstar..."

"Boys would put down their comic books..."

I had to finish howling with laughter before I could respond!!!!

So glad you get what I am talking about AND took it to a another level!

Your idea reminds me of an old TV episode of an ancient show called Mr. Novak, starring James Franciscus as a high school teach back in the '60s. You may be old enough to recall it, or have seen it in reruns, but more likely were too hip to have watched the show. :-)

Anyway, the episode was titled "The Student Who Never Was," and in it a super smart, but cynical student decided to show how phony and impersonal school administrators and faculty were. He invented a student named Sam Orez and enrolled him in the school and, if I recall correctly, got a number of students to attend various classes pretending to be Sam Orez in hopes of graduating this non existent student from Jefferson High. Sam Orez, of course, when his last name was spelled backwards, spelled "Zero."

Your deliciously funny idea also reminds of an earlier and much more sophisticated story like this was the plot of Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" starring Cary Grant as Madison Avenue ad man Roger O. Thornhill. Poor Roger did not realize how impersonal the world had become in the age of the Mies van der Roe high rises. Nor did he appreciate how fungible identity could be under the wrong circumstances. Anyway, Roger was mistaken for a spy that did not actually exist; i.e., he was mistaken for a spy identity with no human attached to it invented by an unnamed American intelligence organization to deceive some foreign spies into revealing the location of a microdot (the McGuffin) the spies have stolen. And if that were not bad enough, Roger gets photographed holding the bloody knife he has withdrawn from a stabbed man and so is believed to have murdered him. It is my favorite Hitchcock film. And of course we learn along the way that the "O." in Roger O. Thornhill stands for nothing. And the paradoxical movie title refers to a direction that does not actually exist on a compass, or in usage. Roger is in the predicament of trying to prove a double negative; that he is not the spy that does not exist that he has been mistaken for, plus that he did not murder anyone. Tough spot for an ordinary ad man to find himself on an ordinary day in NYC. Ernest Lehman who wrote the screenplay was a minor genius. :-)

The difference between then and now is that the kid could never have made any money of Sam Orez, and Roger O. Thornhill had a functioning legal system to appeal to sooner or later, but, today, in the reputed age of hypertelia, I fear someone perhaps could attract some bones doing what you have proposed tongue in cheek.

At the very least, your idea might make a terrific book and movie deal. :-)

Maybe pitch it to Kevin Wilmott, or Spike Lee.

Probably start a bidding war.

Seems timely. :-)

Rock Chalk!

@drgnslayr

You are on the right track here, though I would go much farther.

Like you I would say Lillard is at most a young star that has some potential to become a superstar.

Like you I would say that Lillard is only "called" a superstar largely because of off court stuff.

But then I would go further. I would make clear that superstar and star are anachronistic, 20th Century words referring to performance on the floor.

I would add that superstar in the present refers largely to off court stuff.

Then I would add that in the Age of Hypertelia, i.e., in the age in which the simulation model of a superstar (the hype generated off-court) has eclipsed the reality of the superstar's performance on-court, Damien Lillard is a simulated superstar.

I would point out that adidas desperately needs a simulated superstar, because Rose, once considered a 20th Century superstar throwback, and Howard, always a simulated superstar, have gone bust, leaving adidas without a superstar, or a simulated superstar to schlep shoes and outfits.

I would also point out that the recession in Europe and reputed changes in the stock ownership structure of adidas might put additional pressure on management to have a superstar, or simulated superstar, ASAP.

Lacking a handy 20th Century-style superstar, adidas management appears to have to spend the bones to generate a simulated superstar, because it is the minority duopolist in a highly asymmetric shoeco duopoly, and could find itself marginalized without at least a simulated superstar, until it can find a real one.

Compare what Damien Lillard's production on the floor now to real ones like Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Julius Erving, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Shaq, Lebron, etc. These were superstars under the old on-floor, performance based criterion. I just don't see much comparison.

But we reputedly live in the hyperteliac age, when the simulation of reality has eclipsed reality.

Fine. I am willing to junk superstar and star entirely.

Let's coin a new hyperteliac word for Damien Lillard's current status.

How about "hyperstar"?

It seems less loaded and denigrating than "simulated superstar."

Damien Lillard is a hyperstar.

Who the flip cares if he ever becomes a 20th Century Anachronism "superstar"?

Power to the simulation!

And Andrew Wiggins is on the cusp of hyperstardom, IF he finds a marketing coach and a shoeco committed to hyperstar product endorsers.

What the hell! Maybe the game has just moved off the floor.

Maybe we need to start painting some name on the ribbon of space between the floor and the seating.

The name should be some master of simulation.

How about Jean Baudrillard Court?

Nah, he didn't go to KU.

Hey, in the age of simulation, let's just say he did.

Let the Midnight Special, shine its ever lovin' simulation on you!!

Rock Chalk!

@drgnslayr

Thanks for the link. adidas management appears to be in a fight for its life. Damien = right place|right time. If they can't sign a superstar, they are going the old Hollywood route and create one out of someone that can look like one. Damian Lilliard, meet Rock Hudson. Hey, Rock got rich. Looks like Damien has, too.

Regarding contracts, next milestone coming soon will be $200M. Sky's the limit in a global apparel market with an asymmetric duopoly.

@ParisHawk

Ah, thx 4 clarification.

@RockChalkinTexas

Does anyone seriously believe a rattler gets in a locker accidentally?

@HighEliteMajor

Bravo to a well-written, thought-provoking post!

Here is the thought it provoked in me.

What if Self were no longer entirely able to call the shots about who has to play?

What if in order to get any OADs, one had to agree to take whatever OADs one could sign, no matter who else one already had?

Just speculating hypothetically, of course.

Give me:

High foundations

Competitive greatness

MUA at the 3 impact positions--PG, one wing, center

3 40% trey dingers--two starters, one off the bench

a 4 that can lock down and out rebound their 4, not a scorer

a rim protector 5 that can rebound and hedge defend

2 Long and strong back ups at 4 and 5 that guard and board and dish pain

8 man rotation

Good health

No woman problems

Insight

Cunning

A Pair on each guy

ORDER 15 RINGS

Repeat

PHOF for fresh-think.

Add a defensive criteria of lowest points/minute allowed and the dog hunts.