After a 1-5 start, John Calipari knew he had to make some changes. The first was sending Cam’Ron Fletcher home to help the freshmen get into the right frame of mind and send a message to his team about what is and isn’t acceptable in Kentucky. The second is to ask three players to act and help manage the team’s attitude, or, as Calipari put it, the ‘non-negotiable’.
“I just told them, I’m going to have fun with this,” Calipari said this morning. “I’m going to have fun. We have appointed three guys as leaders to put an end to all non-negotiable issues, attitudes and how to accept coaching. I have nothing to do with that. The players are going to field. So that’s off my plate. I try to give them more control over how we play offensively and less over me. “
Calipari wouldn’t specify who the three players are, but reading between the lines Davion Mintz, Olivier Sarr and Keion Brooks is a good bet.
“I let it play and let it play as it goes and you need older guys. You had to have guys who have the experience of this to give you a bit of a hint, but the whole point of this is to forget about leading and just worry about playing better. Worry about being more involved with our team. But these three – and the reason I did three is that I want them to support each other and basically lead this team. “
When asked, neither Mintz nor Lance Ware wanted to reveal who the leaders are, but said everyone is on board with the new plan.
“The coach pulled a few men into the office and talked about taking the stress out of dealing with non-negotiable matters,” said Mintz. “That should be the responsibility of the guys he selected and everyone is on board with it. Everyone agreed and jump on board. That’s what it is. ”
“We know who those three are in the locker room and that’s where it will stay,” said Ware. “They’ll handle the stuff, the little attitudes that most people have, especially if you’re coming 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 is acceptable. you do in high school I know in high school sometimes I would do some things I would never do here Just stuff like that Just try to keep everyone in line, in line so we don’t have little problems which we can easily avoid. “
What are “Non-Negotiable”?
“Control your attitude,” said Mintz. Checking, can I play this for someone else? He said something like: don’t think less about yourself in terms of who you are as a person, but at the same time think less about yourself when it’s time to help someone else. Many of those things are non-negotiable. When he’s talking, when he’s trying to teach us something, he’s been here for 30 years and his resume speaks for itself. It’s time to listen, so those things out there are non-negotiable. “
So why does a man who earns more than $ 9 million a year ask players to take on any of his duties? Calipari has long preached the importance of player-driven teams, and today remembers how last year’s squad only got together when he was kicked out of the game in Arkansas. Add to this the fact that this year’s team has not been able to deal with its growing pains with a normal non-conference schedule and Calipari can see that his frustrations are negatively affecting the players.
‘If you think I’m happy with this record, you’re crazy. You know me well enough. But I’m not going to let it change how I approach this because this is about what I can do for these young people. And the only way I can do the work I do every year is to have a ball with it. And I always have nice 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, your job is to eliminate it so that I can have fun and coach that way, and that’s how you want me to coach. “
“The most important thing for me is that I want to enjoy this,” he repeated later. That’s the secret sauce to what we do. Yes, I am aggressive and I hold them accountable and to a high standard, but I have a ball. And I think they can feel that. At the moment, there is a level of frustration due to issues that are normally not negotiable in this program. “