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Monk-Bridges package deal?

Don't think it's a coincidence at all that Fox, Bridges, Monk, Giles, and SKJ are going to be in attendance together at BBM.
 
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Fox, Monk, and Bridges seem made to play together. That would be an amazing 1-3 combo. All three can shoot. Fox loves to get others involved. Monk is an electrifying scorer. Bridges can do a little bit of everything, especially rebound.

Then add in Gabriel at the 4 spot, to go with Killeya-Jones at the 5. That's my realistic dream class. I can't see us pulling Giles or Adebayo. Gabriel is possible. I don't see him going to Duke and having to compete with Tatum for minutes when he would most likely start for UK.
 
I'm not particularly optimistic about Giles either, but I think he's the key to Cal's "best class ever" projections. I just don't think you can have a "best class ever" at UK without an elite big, and Giles is the only one on the radar.

Subtract Giles, and we've got a shot at the No. 2 class, with Duke as No. 1 if they land Giles.
 
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Cat Ballou said:
I'm not particularly optimistic about Giles either, but I think he's the key to Cal's "best class ever" projections. I just don't think you can have a "best class ever" at UK without an elite big, and Giles is the only one on the radar.

Subtract Giles, and we've got a shot at the No. 2 class, with Duke as No. 1 if they land Giles.
Click to expand...

We are also still recruiting Adebayo and Maker. You might consider Gabriel a big (though he is more of a wing player) since he is 6'10.
 
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I think UK will get both Bridges , Monk and Fox but just don't see Giles being at UK. Stranger things have happen though. Cal will bring in a great class.
 
Well that looks like a good sign. This class is going to be epic. Might be wishful thinking but Cal has been on Giles for awhile even when he was injured last year, these are the good old days.
 
bucsrule8872 said:
Fox, Monk, and Bridges seem made to play together. That would be an amazing 1-3 combo. All three can shoot. Fox loves to get others involved. Monk is an electrifying scorer. Bridges can do a little bit of everything, especially rebound.

Then add in Gabriel at the 4 spot, to go with Killeya-Jones at the 5. That's my realistic dream class. I can't see us pulling Giles or Adebayo. Gabriel is possible. I don't see him going to Duke and having to compete with Tatum for minutes when he would most likely start for UK.
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Agree
 
Duke hasn't had a bad surprise in recruiting since Barnes. They're long overdue. But typically for some reason the guys we hear are locks for Duke early on, have in fact been locks for Duke.

Thornton, Ingram, Okafor, Tyus Jones, (maybe even Winslow, but I know Zona fans were awfully confident about him for a long time too), Tatum, Parker, Rivers, Jackson.

Kentucky for some reason, hasn't had a lot of guys that were considered locks for us early on and panned out.

The Harrison Twins, MKG, Jamed Young are the only ones I can think of.

Guys that went the other way that were once supposedly locks: Fultz, Wiggins, Kennard, Newman(?), Mudiay(though Eric Bossi warned us on the national recruiting board that he didn't believe this), Jaylen Brown(very early was said to be a UK lock once offered),

I feel like that are a bunch more that we've been told once we offered it was over. Carlton Bragg. That's another one.

I wonder why this is? Is it possible these kids are actually verbaling to Duke early and keeping it quiet for some reason?

Giles, Wendell Carter, Gary Trent Jr and Wenyan Gabriel are also considered strong Duke leans to a lock at this point as well.

I'm just gonna leave it here, but autocorrect didn't change "Jamed" to James. Really autocorrect?
 
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I hope giles saw what happened to okafor, locked to be #1 pick but calipari did his magic to karl.I hope cal uses that for rerecruiting
 
Giles probably wants to see if UK can do for Skal what it did for Karl, which was help him shoot up the draft boards. I think Giles likes Cal and honestly wants to see how UK uses Skal. I mean, Cal is selling the following:

- Karl as overtaking Okafor.
- Noel, Cousins, Davis, Karl, Willie - UK helped each of them. Duke only has Okafor to sell Giles on.
- UK would likely let Giles play the 4 spot as opposed to the 5 at Duke. One has to wonder if this is something Giles is interested in. It would be hard to imagine Coach K playing a traditional lineup over his desire for spacing.
- Giles genuinely likes UK and wants to let the process play out.

I think UK has a better chance than some might imagine.
 
Son_Of_Saul said:
Giles probably wants to see if UK can do for Skal what it did for Karl, which was help him shoot up the draft boards. I think Giles likes Cal and honestly wants to see how UK uses Skal. I mean, Cal is selling the following:

- Karl as overtaking Okafor.
- Noel, Cousins, Davis, Karl, Willie - UK helped each of them. Duke only has Okafor to sell Giles on.
- UK would likely let Giles play the 4 spot as opposed to the 5 at Duke. One has to wonder if this is something Giles is interested in. It would be hard to imagine Coach K playing a traditional lineup over his desire for spacing.
- Giles genuinely likes UK and wants to let the process play out.

I think UK has a better chance than some might imagine.
Click to expand...

Just to point out... Just a couple of years ago Duke had Mason Plumlee, who was the best big man in the nation (won the PN award) and a legit candidate for NPOY. Add in Ryan Kelly, who was really good until his injury and is now on the Lakers, and Miles Plumlee, who was barely a top 100 recruit and who is now in the league, and Duke has developed (ie they weren't already top five type talents in their class) some pretty good bigs in the last four or so years. Not sure why taking top 2 or 3 talents and keeping them such would be some better sign of development.

Either way, Giles is going to be a beast. Hoping he is a beast at Duke.
 
Son_Of_Saul said:
Giles probably wants to see if UK can do for Skal what it did for Karl, which was help him shoot up the draft boards. I think Giles likes Cal and honestly wants to see how UK uses Skal. I mean, Cal is selling the following:

- Karl as overtaking Okafor.
- Noel, Cousins, Davis, Karl, Willie - UK helped each of them. Duke only has Okafor to sell Giles on.
- UK would likely let Giles play the 4 spot as opposed to the 5 at Duke. One has to wonder if this is something Giles is interested in. It would be hard to imagine Coach K playing a traditional lineup over his desire for spacing.
- Giles genuinely likes UK and wants to let the process play out.

I think UK has a better chance than some might imagine.
Click to expand...

Cal will have a tough time helping Skal shoot up the draft boards, since he's already at the top. But I know what you mean.
 
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The big I would really like to get (besides Giles) is Adebayo. That kid doesn't just try to dunk, he tries to destroy the rim. Love his energy. Ranking the big men (potential 4's and 5's) that we are in on based on what I have seen:

1. Giles
2. Adebayo
3. Gabriel
4. Maker
5. Leaf
 
TUL said:
Just to point out... Just a couple of years ago Duke had Mason Plumlee, who was the best big man in the nation (won the PN award) and a legit candidate for NPOY. Add in Ryan Kelly, who was really good until his injury and is now on the Lakers, and Miles Plumlee, who was barely a top 100 recruit and who is now in the league, and Duke has developed (ie they weren't already top five type talents in their class) some pretty good bigs in the last four or so years. Not sure why taking top 2 or 3 talents and keeping them such would be some better sign of development.

Either way, Giles is going to be a beast. Hoping he is a beast at Duke.
Click to expand...
Did you go with the plumlee,plumlee and Ryan Kelly argument...lol....verses the Anthony Davis, Demarcus cousins,Noel, Karl Anthony towns and skal argument....you are a funny guy. I'll even throw in kanter for fun.
 
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UK HEMINGWAY said:
Did you go with the plumlee,plumlee and Ryan Kelly argument...lol....verses the Anthony Davis, Demarcus cousins,Noel, Karl Anthony towns and skal argument....you are a funny guy. I'll even throw in kanter for fun.
Click to expand...


I was just about to say the exact same.
 
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TUL said:
Just to point out... Just a couple of years ago Duke had Mason Plumlee, who was the best big man in the nation (won the PN award) and a legit candidate for NPOY. Add in Ryan Kelly, who was really good until his injury and is now on the Lakers, and Miles Plumlee, who was barely a top 100 recruit and who is now in the league, and Duke has developed (ie they weren't already top five type talents in their class) some pretty good bigs in the last four or so years. Not sure why taking top 2 or 3 talents and keeping them such would be some better sign of development.

Either way, Giles is going to be a beast. Hoping he is a beast at Duke.
Click to expand...

I feel your pain, nobody ever wants to give Cal credit for developing the guys he did at UMass (mostly 3-star and lower guys), Memphis (not all top 10 talent), and guys like Harrellson at UK.

People only want to talk about Davis and company with the whole "they would be good no matter where they go" argument.

By the way, the guys you mentioned were McD's AA's weren't they? Not exactly turning coal into diamonds.
 
christiane said:
I hope giles saw what happened to okafor, locked to be #1 pick but calipari did his magic to karl.I hope cal uses that for rerecruiting
Click to expand...

Cal does a better job with big men than any coach in the country. Okafor fell to #3, which isn't some huge slide. So it's not that bad.

That said, if I were a big man with aspirations of going #1 I don't know how you go anywhere but UK right now. We already have the top 2 big men in the NBA in cousins and Davis, another budding star in Noel and the most recent big man to go #1 in Towns. Plus a host of other power forwards and centers that are doing extremely well right now. We've had 9 big men drafted in the lottery in 6 seasons.

Giles could do worse than Duke. But he certainly couldn't make a better choice than UK.
 
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Sorry, thought my point was clear.

It seemed that the poster was talking about development; after all, he said "UK helped all of them."

Guys like Cousins and Davis and Noel and KAT were all, at worst, top three talents. Having them go to the league as a top draft pick doesn't necessarily show development, or help... They went where everyone expected them to go, and did what everyone expected them to do.

But taking guys like the Plumlee brothers and Ryan Kelly and making them into the best big man in the nation and getting them to the league is a bit of work.

Maybe I misunderstood what the poster meant, when he talked about being helped by your college choice... If it wasn't about developing those players, what did he mean?
 
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Your comparisons are off, TUL.

The Plumlees and Kelly were all McDonald's All-Americans. They were "developed" into serviceable NBA backup bigs.

Compare those guys to Cal's McDonald's All-American bigs-- Davis, Cousins, Noel, Randle, T. Jones, and others. It's not really close. When you add in lesser HS recruits like Cauley-Stein and Harrellson, you see just how well Calipari has developed virtually every big he's had while at Kentucky.
 
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Well Mason Plumlee was a top 25 player that went late first after 4 years and Ryan Kelly was a top 15 player that went in the second round after 4 years... Both were also McDonald's All Americans
 
TUL said:
Sorry, thought my point was clear.

It seemed that the poster was talking about development; after all, he said "UK helped all of them."

Guys like Cousins and Davis and Noel and KAT were all, at worst, top three talents. Having them go to the league as a top draft pick doesn't necessarily show development, or help... They went where everyone expected them to go, and did what everyone expected them to do.

But taking guys like the Plumlee brothers and Ryan Kelly and making them into the best big man in the nation and getting them to the league is a bit of work.

Maybe I misunderstood what the poster meant, when he talked about being helped by your college choice... If it wasn't about developing those players, what did he mean?
Click to expand...

Miles Plumlee developed far more than expected, but Mason Plumlee and Ryan Kelly were both All Americans coming out of high school.

Ryan Kelly stuck around 4 years and went mid second round, so I don't think I would brag on his development.

I actually think K does fine developing players, but Cal does have a better track record with bigs.

Towns was universally expected to go behind Okafor, but Towns passed him. You can say that Cal didn't develop him, but that's silly. He turned him from primarily a jump shooting big into a load on the block.

It was this development that helped KAT and Okafor essentially trade places on draft boards. When you're dealing with the best of the best, subtle differences mean everything.
 
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Cat Ballou said:
I'm not particularly optimistic about Giles either, but I think he's the key to Cal's "best class ever" projections. I just don't think you can have a "best class ever" at UK without an elite big, and Giles is the only one on the radar.

Subtract Giles, and we've got a shot at the No. 2 class, with Duke as No. 1 if they land Giles.
Click to expand...

Basketball is a paradox: it's a team game in which one player can matter. Larry Bird and Indiana State. Mark Aguirre and DePaul. Etc. Whoever lands Giles has the de facto #1 class.

I think the reason one transcendent player matters is that we tend to see huge differences in skill where there usually isn't as much as we imagine.A bad meal. Experience. A fight with your girlfriend. Family issues. Lots of things can wipe out the small athletic differences between players at the college level. Recruiting services put meaningless numbers on the differences among the players. Really? 2 decimal accuracy? Fascinating.
 
Aike said:
Miles Plumlee developed far more than expected, but Mason Plumlee and Ryan Kelly were both All Americans coming out of high school.
Click to expand...
Miles was a top 50 player and even then, Miles going as high as he did was definitely a surprise. I think most people were shocked that his vertical was like 41" and him being 7 feet, and the Pacers drafted him late first due to that.
 
TUL said:
It seemed that the poster was talking about development; after all, he said "UK helped all of them."

Guys like Cousins and Davis and Noel and KAT were all, at worst, top three talents. Having them go to the league as a top draft pick doesn't necessarily show development, or help... They went where everyone expected them to go, and did what everyone expected them to do.
Click to expand...

Ah, my favorite "Cal doesn't develop talent or help his players improve because they are all already so talented" talking point. I seriously question the I.Q. of people who choose to believe this and then repeat it. You are only making yourself look bad.

You do realize that just because you are really talented at something, doesn't mean that you can no longer improve and/or develop, right? I mean, already being really talented and further developing/improving your talents aren't mutually exclusive. You don't just automatically top out just because you are already really talented.

As for the players you named above? Every single one of those guys developed/improved tremendously under Cal in their one year at UK. Go back and watch any of those players in Nov. of their Freshman year, then watch them again in March. They all developed and improved a great deal and that is an undeniable fact.
 
hoodro said:
Ah, my favorite "Cal doesn't develop talent or help his players improve because they are all already so talented" talking point. I seriously question the I.Q. of people who choose to believe this and then repeat it. You are only making yourself look bad.

You do realize that just because you are really talented at something, doesn't mean that you can no longer improve and/or develop, right? I mean, already being really talented and further developing/improving your talents aren't mutually exclusive. You don't just automatically top out just because you are already really talented.

As for the players you named above? Every single one of those guys developed/improved tremendously under Cal in their one year at UK. Go back and watch any of those players in Nov. of their Freshman year, then watch them again in March. They all developed and improved a great deal and that is an undeniable fact.
Click to expand...



2 things to add...

1) splinter helped okafor go from the consensus #1 pick for over a year to the 3rd overall pick.

2) Duke fans are turds.
 
This is the main argument used against Cal and it is so flawed, but you can't blame them for trying.

What are our rivals suppose to do? They can't admit Cal is better at developing players because he is already better at recruiting and is obviously a great coach (four out of last five Final Fours). There has to be a weakness somewhere.
 
I mean, calamari is shady though so...

Everyone knows the squid pays the refs.
 
ScrapIrony said:
Your comparisons are off, TUL.

The Plumlees and Kelly were all McDonald's All-Americans. They were "developed" into serviceable NBA backup bigs.

Compare those guys to Cal's McDonald's All-American bigs-- Davis, Cousins, Noel, Randle, T. Jones, and others. It's not really close. When you add in lesser HS recruits like Cauley-Stein and Harrellson, you see just how well Calipari has developed virtually every big he's had while at Kentucky.
Click to expand...

Wasn't Marcus Lee a McDonald's AA? He was RSCI #18 in his class.
 
KnowsAllTellsAll said:
Wasn't Marcus Lee a McDonald's AA? He was RSCI #18 in his class.
Click to expand...
If Lee chose to go to any other school in the country he'd more than likely be holding down a starting spot and/or logging major minutes.

The reason Lee hasn't done those things at UK isn't because of his lack of development, but because of who he's been behind.
 
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Lee has been stuck behind better players. This year will be his time to shine.Give him 4 years that Plumlee and Kelly had. then compare him.
 
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