1-5. John Calipari knew he was in trouble after pulling back an opponent. The first was to send Cam’Ron Fletcher home to help the freshman get into the right mood and send a message to his team about what is and is not acceptable in Kentucky. The second requires the three players to step up and help manage the team’s attitude or, as Calipari said, “non-negotiable.”
“I just told them I’m going to have fun with this,” Calipari said this morning. “I will have fun. We have appointed three guys to be leaders to eliminate all non-negotiable, attitudes, how you accept coaching. I have nothing to do with any of this. Players will have to deal. So this is from the plate. Trying to get them to control more the way we play offensively and less of me. “
Calipari would not specify who the three players are, but reading between the lines, Davion Mintz, Olivier Sarr and Keion Brooks is a good guess.
“I will let him play and play how it works and you have to have older boys. You had to have guys who have the experience of this to give you some sort of clue, but the whole point of this is to forget about driving and worry about the best game. You’re worried you’re more engaged with our team. But these three – and the reason I did three, I want them to support each other and practically lead this team. “
When asked, neither Mintz nor Lance Ware will reveal who the leaders are, but they said everyone is on board with the new plan.
“The coach brought a few guys into the office and talked about eliminating the stress of dealing with people who are not negotiable,” Mintz said. “It should be the responsibility of the guys he chooses and everyone is on board with that. Everyone agreed and jumped on board. That’s it.”
“We know who the three of them are in the locker room and they will stay there,” Ware said. “They’ll take care of the things they have, the little attitudes that most people have, especially when you come to Kentucky and you’re around other great players, you’re going to have to learn what you can and can’t do. Not everything you do in high school is acceptable. I know that sometimes in high school I would do some things that I would never do here. Stuff like that. Just trying to keep everyone in check, in line, so that we don’t have small problems that we can easily avoid.
What are “non-negotiable”?
“Controlling your attitude,” Mintz said. “By controlling, can I make this game for someone else? He said something like that, not thinking less about you as a person, but at the same time, thinking less about yourself when it’s time to help someone else. Many of these things are non-negotiable. When he speaks, when he tries to teach us, he has been here for 30 years and his CV speaks for itself. It’s time to listen, so those things there are negotiable. “
So why does a man who earns over $ 9 million a year ask players to take on one of his responsibilities? Calipari has long preached the importance of teams being led by players, recalling today how last year’s team reunited only after being kicked out of the Arkansas game. Add to that the fact that this year’s team failed to overcome its growing pains with a normal non-conference schedule and Calipari can say that its frustrations have a negative effect on the players.
“If you think I’m happy with this record, you’re crazy. You know me pretty well. But I will not let the way I approach this change, because it is about what I can do for these young people. And the only way I can do the job I do every year is to have a ball with her. And I always have fun coaching. And if I’m not having fun, how am I going to do my job for these kids? So I told them that. I want to have fun. Some of these things that frustrate coaches, it’s your job to eliminate them so that I can have fun and train that way, that’s how you want to train. “
“The biggest thing for me is that I want to have fun doing this,” he later repeated. “This is the secret sauce in what we do. Yes, I am aggressive and I hold them accountable to a high standard, but I have a ball. And I think I can feel that. At this time, there was a level of frustration due to things that are not normally negotiable in this program. “