This has been my main gripe with just about every Cal team. Bogut pretty much nails it.
Andrew Bogut speaks truth (Cal)
- Thread starter GoToTexas
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Lol. Of all the things to criticize Cal about, you come up with “doesn’t prepare players for the NBA.”
As of the final 8 teams in the playoffs, Kentucky had, I think, nine players in pivotal roles — waaaay more than any other program. Go back a round before that, and you had teams like Sacramento with three other Kentucky players in important slots. And all coached by Calipari. It is likely another Cat will get a championship ring this year after playing a critical part.
Keep trying OP. Sling gallons of bleep against the wall. You’ll get something to stick. Maybe.
As of the final 8 teams in the playoffs, Kentucky had, I think, nine players in pivotal roles — waaaay more than any other program. Go back a round before that, and you had teams like Sacramento with three other Kentucky players in important slots. And all coached by Calipari. It is likely another Cat will get a championship ring this year after playing a critical part.
Keep trying OP. Sling gallons of bleep against the wall. You’ll get something to stick. Maybe.
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Yeah, plenty to complain about but this isn't high on the list. Off ball movement has been decent, number of open looks has been decent, number of cash-ins on those looks, not so much.
Could it bet better? Sure, but defense has been way more problematic than anything offense related in the past few years.
Could it bet better? Sure, but defense has been way more problematic than anything offense related in the past few years.
So you all think Cal teams have great spacing, play well without the ball, cut, and screen?
I think I’m out. Lol
I think I’m out. Lol
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We don’t need no spacin’ mane. We’ll get Oscar to come back and just force feed his ass on the block. According to some he’s the greatest big at UK ever to live. Did you know he’s a NPOY!
Floppy, floppy, fake high ball screen, floppy, floppy, floppy, floppy, post Oscar.
Anyone that watches a Kentucky game and thinks the spacing is great. Must have one of those really old huge box televisions. Screen has to be blurry or something.
And as far as I can tell, the initial post didn’t even mention the NBA. Who freaking cares about the NBA. We need a coach that will get the most out of his players for the one single season They are here.
And as far as I can tell, the initial post didn’t even mention the NBA. Who freaking cares about the NBA. We need a coach that will get the most out of his players for the one single season They are here.
All players you speak of have spent multiple years in the league, and spent 6 months with Cal. Cal has had very little, if any, impact on their development and ultimate success at the next level. Most have expanded their games well beyond what cal would even allow them to try here (mostly the bigs).
That is a problem.
But they shouldn’t have to be taught.
Most of my playing basketball came in lunchtime games at work (1 hr a day, 2-3 days a week, for probably 10 years), of course with no coaching. Yet I figured out spacing and cutting on my own, and think I was pretty good at those things. Because I wasn’t athletic or skilled enough to create my own shot with the ball.
But they shouldn’t have to be taught.
Most of my playing basketball came in lunchtime games at work (1 hr a day, 2-3 days a week, for probably 10 years), of course with no coaching. Yet I figured out spacing and cutting on my own, and think I was pretty good at those things. Because I wasn’t athletic or skilled enough to create my own shot with the ball.
Actually, this is a very real problem that has nothing to do with Cal. In their ravenous slavering zeal to unfairly bash the man, many fail to see this. The issue in the prep system. They are simply not teaching the sport. The AAU is the worst of the bunch. KY is a victim of these failures. They are certainly not causing it.
It’s funny there is so much disagreement on this. I think it’s one of the things Cal does the best job of teaching but it’s all about the effort the kids are willing to put in. Herro got it. Maxey got it. Murray got it. Some of the more recent stars, not so much.
Lol, once again this board shows how little they know about actual basketball. You can't argue that Cal never has set plays and that Cal also doesn't teach the actual game of basketball. That's exactly why his teams take a while to hit their stride, because he's trying to teach guys how to read defenses and offenses instead of teaching them set plays.
NBA GMs complain that guys coming from college don't know how to play basketball, they know how to run set plays. This is literally the exact opposite of what Cal does.
NBA GMs complain that guys coming from college don't know how to play basketball, they know how to run set plays. This is literally the exact opposite of what Cal does.
Until recently we had great off ball movement. Guys like lamb, Murray, herro, and even Grady really worked hard and got good shots.
Last year we just had guys not going full speed on cuts, weren't smart setting up the screen and it showed because they couldn't get open looks.
Last year we just had guys not going full speed on cuts, weren't smart setting up the screen and it showed because they couldn't get open looks.
Does he also teach all 4 guys to stand still while one player dribbles the air out of the ball. What part of the OP mentioned anything about set plays. In your haste to bash others knowledge of the game you took your reading comprehension skills and threw them out the window. We have poor spacing, we rarely set screens (except at the top) and when we do they aren’t even half ass good. We rarely see backdoor cuts to the basket. We have the worst rhythmic offense and it shows with multiple players poor shooting performances. You are correct however, cal doesn’t teach much of anything.
Yeah I mean, whose fault is this that players aren't properly equipped to play the college game? Someone above said "Cal only has them for 6 months".. so it can't be his fault if their development misses the mark.
This seems more like a problem with the way the high-school and AAU is handled.
In my view our spacing depends on who we have.Lamb.Booker,Herro,Monk and even a few of our bigs done a great job of creating space to get off their shots.I also think it helped to have solid point guards for those players as well.
No doubt the quality of our spacing and offensive sets have taken a downward turn over the last 3 seasons but that also goes back to whom we have on the court.Calipari could do a much better job of running a better offensive plan than run and go but the players have to have the will to move,set screens and distribute the ball other than weave,dribble,weave and wait until 2 seconds to get off a shot that is being forced.
No doubt the quality of our spacing and offensive sets have taken a downward turn over the last 3 seasons but that also goes back to whom we have on the court.Calipari could do a much better job of running a better offensive plan than run and go but the players have to have the will to move,set screens and distribute the ball other than weave,dribble,weave and wait until 2 seconds to get off a shot that is being forced.
You guys get too caught up in thinking just because the players don't do something that they're not being coached to do it. It's well documented the 2010 panicked and kept shooting from the outside against WVU despite Cal specifically telling them to go inside.
And you're missing my point. Players who are taught set plays can still have good spacing, cuts, and screens. But they're not taught to make those decisions on their own, they're taught a sequence of events to execute and that's it. So if the defense adjusts in a way they didn't anticipate, they don't know what to do. And when they get to the NBA they're a fish out of water because the NBA has some of smartest players on the planet who read defenses and offenses instead of executing set plays.
To act like our Cal teams have never had the things you're complaining about is revisionist history. And even his great teams took a while to come together because he is teaching them more about the principles of offense and defense and running it on the fly depending on what the other team is doing instead of set plays. You can teach a team of monkeys how to run set plays and have good spacing.
What Bogut and countless NBA GMs have been complaining about is that college players don't understand the game enough to know how to achieve the spacing and cutting and screening on their own as the game unfolds in front of them. But they can play paint by numbers at the college level and run a well designed play.
And yet we were still 17th in adjusted offense. 68th in defense by the way.... But yet your focus is in the wrong spot.
What are you dumping on Oscar for?He's the only one who showed up the last 2 tourneys.
If you think Cal had anything to do with current players in the NBA, I'm not sure what to say. SGA you could make a case since he blew up at UK, but I don't even see that. Cal literally tells his guys to go make a play. We don't do a lot of moving without the ball. We've got a 14 year sample size.
The bold part above is their own damn fault for not letting players take time in developing their overall game and instead drafting them into the league with snotty noses. You can’t draft kids based on their potential and then complain because they aren’t a polished product when they step foot onto the court. AAU has been the death of basketball as we all knew it to be and the NBA has aided in the deterioration of the overall product on both the collegiate and professional level.
One of the things that Kentucky players praise Calipari for teaching them is how to play without the ball. Maxey and Quickley literally spoke of this in a Podcast how they had to learn how to play with other talented guys and not just have the ball entire game and everyone play off them.
Thing about this style of play-looks a whole lot better when you have better and more talented players. Kentucky has lacked talent in addition to skill lately. When you are skilled but not very good, get too many of those type of players, you will not win games.
Thing about this style of play-looks a whole lot better when you have better and more talented players. Kentucky has lacked talent in addition to skill lately. When you are skilled but not very good, get too many of those type of players, you will not win games.
Cal teaches them to wash feet, pesky free throws need to be taken care of on their own time - CLANK...
These comments by Bogut remind me of what Grady said last year when TyTy came back, “ guess it’s time for me to go back to just standing in the corner”.
That comment was all the proof anyone needed for how much time and effort Cal puts into spacing and sets. Heck, his lack of ANY inbound plays or the ability to defend them underneath the opponents goal is even MORE proof of him “just rolling the ball out” in his practices.
That comment was all the proof anyone needed for how much time and effort Cal puts into spacing and sets. Heck, his lack of ANY inbound plays or the ability to defend them underneath the opponents goal is even MORE proof of him “just rolling the ball out” in his practices.
I don't get it, either. Cal ball is some of the most ineffective ball I've ever seen, and it is definitely ugly. We do not run cuts, pick and rolls, give and takes. It's just setting screens out up top and isolation junk. Its like playing a game of EA basketball.
Ralph, when you've got teams like Belmont and Bellarmine running constant motion (like Pitino did) with 3/4 star players, the problem is Cal.
Sad to see so many bash the OP for making valid points. When players and analysts dog Cals system, they are talking about these exact things. Absolutely no fundamental team ball. It’s all “get the best players and let them just go beat someone”. That works pretty well with John Wall and Anthony Davis, but it’s not so great with non transcendent players.
No screens, cuts, overall movement, different looks, etc. It’s SHOCKING a blue blood coach won’t play 2 minutes of zone ever, no matter what. That does t get discussed nearly enough. The problem isn’t that it’s effective or not, it just shows a pure unwillingness to do whatever it takes to win a team game. He’s doing it his way no matter what, and it’s an all systems failure at this point.
No screens, cuts, overall movement, different looks, etc. It’s SHOCKING a blue blood coach won’t play 2 minutes of zone ever, no matter what. That does t get discussed nearly enough. The problem isn’t that it’s effective or not, it just shows a pure unwillingness to do whatever it takes to win a team game. He’s doing it his way no matter what, and it’s an all systems failure at this point.
That's great. That doesn't mean that Kentucky doesn't do things effectively for players as well. The #1 problem with any decline is assessing what the problem areas are. In Calipari's case, it's one thing to "share" when you have teams like he used to have. It's an entirely different issue when your talent pool should be a monarchy. So when Wall is sharing with Bledsoe-that's great. But what happens when Wheeler is sharing with Fredrick?
Talent decline has been the #1 reason for the decline of Cal's program.
Basketball wise, I love how Belmont/Bellarmine play too. Pitino also installed a system that he recruited to and played a ton of players and a style that rewarded doing so. I think Pitino is one of the top 3 college coaches I've seen in nearly 5 decades of watching CBB. Cal has had quite a bit of success head to head against him.
Where all fans who follow this program agree is not what Cal does in a game, it's what he does after establishing a rhythm to the game and pulls the ball out, goes 1/4 sets which is not how I'd play even when having great talent but when you have elite guard play they can cover the stench of that passive/scared approach. Pitino would let the onslaught take place and run you off the floor. Cal.....he'll be on verge of having it happen but then hit the brake. One of the biggest examples is that '12 NC game. How that wasn't a 20+ win.......and Kentucky should've had 80+ pts. They were the best team all year and in that game it wasn't close yet pulling it out--focus on time, not talent advantage gets everyone tight and builds momentum for an opponent.
Also haven't liked how Cal and staff don't seem to understand momentum recently with their teams. A group will be off to a great start and lineup change happens just because it's balancing minutes for the season. That's stupidity. That is the analytical BS that I despise in sport right now. You coach to the game, not the season. Depth is important over course of season and will be called upon and needed. It's not needed if a group is on a 10-0 run-let them stay in and play. Seen that far too often in the last 5 years and sick to death watching it.
People are dissatisfied with the postseason results since the AD championship team. I think they have a point. Do you not? The rest is just collateral chitchat.
Everyone gets that Bogut wasn't talking about Cal right? He was talking about all of college, and by default HS and AAU ball.
His comment was as much about Cal as it was about Self, Izzo, K, etc. PLAYERS today are racing toward a paycheck and they think buckets are they only way to get there. Role players aren't valued, moving your defender out of position so your team can exploit an advantage is out school. Its all about "my game" and getting mine.
But before we bash these kids, is that really different than the society we have become? Climbing over each other to get the bigger house, the nicer car, etc. Our youth is a mirror in all they do.
His comment was as much about Cal as it was about Self, Izzo, K, etc. PLAYERS today are racing toward a paycheck and they think buckets are they only way to get there. Role players aren't valued, moving your defender out of position so your team can exploit an advantage is out school. Its all about "my game" and getting mine.
But before we bash these kids, is that really different than the society we have become? Climbing over each other to get the bigger house, the nicer car, etc. Our youth is a mirror in all they do.
Pitino offense was predicated then on principles that were not seen before. It was the same game, pg would go off the dribble and look for them to help to hit a open guy. And the Belmont and bellarmine offenses don't work against any kind of athletes.
They absolutely do. The good ones anyway.
Murray, Knox, Monk, Herro, etc were constant movement without the ball.
But offense has not been the problem the last 2 seasons. Averaged 80 points last season and 75 this season.
Would have been much more had those guys unguarded because of Oscar’s double and triple teams made them pay.
It’s not the scheme. It’s the players.
And having those low IQ, low skilled players here is a legit complaint against Cal.
That’s been remedied for next year. There will be plenty of off ball movement next season.
Cal is all about quantity over quality. That's pretty plain to see. The sheer number of UK players in the NBA vs other schools does more to expose Cal's malfeasance toward the UK Program. He's not here to win Titles ... he's at UK to market HS players to the NBA, that's it. He should be fired for cause. These OAD UK players don't begin to learn to play the game until they're in the league for a few years. They don't learn much of anything in one year under Calipari and they don't achieve anything, as a TEAM. He's a recruiter, not a coach. Cal's approach is to "out-talent" the opponent b/c he can't out-coach the opposition. The various layers of John Calipari have been peeled back to reveal a narcissistic carpetbagger whose purpose at UK is the "use" the UK national platform and program to perpetrate this fraud and satisfy his egotistical derangement.
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