Further, we were supposed to believe that "things changed" regarding his draft status, when even last Fall Sharpe was a projected top 10 pick before he came to Kentucky? I'm not buying it.
This has been greatly debated so I will keep it short and simple as possible.
After Sharpe signed last fall, Krysten Peek, a draft analyst, interviewed him. Larry Vaught quoted Peek as saying Sharpe told her back then that he intended to be in this year's draft and that playing for Ky was secondary to that if it even happened. (I have llinks for everything mentioned in this post - if you want them, ask).
UK admissions clears him to get his scholarship last December/Jan - they had to have a graduation cert., a transcript, and approval for him to ever join the team.
Now, it gets interesting. Tucker did an article detailing the entire timeline with quotes backing everything up from Sharpe, his parents, Washington (his agent/handler), and Cal.
There were quotes for everything, except...... one very, very crucial thing that Kyle threw in the article - Kyle said that Sharpe and his parents wanted to play last year when we had injuries. He said Cal wanted to play him, but Washington shut that down, not wanting to hurt his draft stock.
THAT did
NOT have a quote surrounding it so I asked Kyle on twitter who said it. Kyle responded "well, it didn't come from the UK side" .....so, who does that leave? The whole article threw Washington under the bus, but it inadvertantly made Cal look bad too, because he let a handler hijack his season. Still, we don't know for sure who gave Kyle that quote.
A couple of days after Kyle's article, everyone was in an uproar on social media about Washingron, calling for his head on a platter. So, Cal goes on the Issel and Pratt radio show and effectively says that the fans should calm down because we don't want to burn our connection to Canadian kids.
What?! After all of this, Cal doesn't want to sever the relationship with Washington (he has delivered several Canadian kids to us over the years).
Now, that does not add up at all - if Washington is truly the one who caused all of this, why doesn't Cal burn his career? How can he, or anyone else ever trust this handler again?
Someone or someones' career should be ruined over this. But it depends who knew what and when they knew it. It depends on who really put the brakes on playing him and who knew he was truly entering the draft this year no matter what.
Not because I am a UK fan, but because this whole thing was unethical and I would be offended even if it happened to Duke. It should not ever happen again.
Cal should be cleared in the mess completely or he should be fired. Washington should save his reputation or he should never touch a HS recruit again. Sharpe should be the #5 draft pick or no NBA org should touch him, his agent, or his parents with a pick at all. Instead, lovers and haters are left to imagine their own scenario.
The only way we will ever know is if reporters/media start doing their job, but I suspect they are afraid of tanking their own career by pressing Cal on it - if they burn their relationship with Cal, their UK BB reporting career is over. And people who care about the program are the only ones who care what and why it happened. So,...... we may never know the whole truth.
