Roster Building Strategy

[Inlumine]

I was wondering how you guys would approach building a roster in the days of NIL and having a budget and needing to fill a full roster, kind of like what Mark Pope is dealing with now. It has to be tricky because you have a bunch of spots to fill and you don’t want to spend all your money and then have a big fish come on the market and not have money to get him.

Me personally, I would identify 2 extremely high level, high priced pieces to spend the majority of money on. I’m talking about top 5 level guys who fit your system and you think would be immediate stars. Then you pay what you have to to get them, you outbid anyone. Once you have that core, building around the edges becomes a lot easier and you can take low/no NIL glue guy types who want to be at Kentucky. That’s the way you discover a diamond in the rough anyway. I think you’re just as or even more likely to find a good player that way than a $300k tier NIL guy just coming for the money. If there is another “star” guy who becomes available later, you cross that bridge when you get there and try to raise money. If there’s only 1 you like now, rather than 2 immediately, you save your ammo for a little until 1 becomes available.

How would you guys approach roster/ salary management? More conservative on not spending too much per player or my approach?

 

[cats2010]

Probably the coach K, Roy Williams, Jay Wright route.

 

[Fox2monk]

I’d pick 2-4 guys a year in HS who can contribute and develop over 2-3 years as a base. Maybe 1-2 High level possible 1 and D. Then I’m the rest I’d pick out of the portal to plug and play spots. This obviously depends on current roster and whatnot but the portal will be even more important than HS IMO now.