Over the next three days, we’ll post a transcript of John Calipari’s preseason media roundtable in three parts. To start with, Coach Cal talks about handling hype, the Harrison twins and more.Cal you mentioned some things about, statistically, and I wonder, what’s your relationship with analytics? Are you looking at any more of it? Are you looking at numbers more than you used to? “Look, there’s the guy that’s never played, coached or done anything but look at numbers and tell you what your team should look like. Beat it. Then there’s the guy, the old-school guy, that never looked at a number, doesn’t know how to open a computer, doesn’t know how to Twitter, Facebook – which would be me — and he doesn’t want to look at numbers. You got to–it’s both. The numbers that are good for us are for the players to see what they’re accomplishing, in my mind. And it’s good for everyone else to see what those numbers say. That’s good for them to see what those numbers say, but the reality of it is we could all watch a game and if you have any feel for the game at all you could say he played a great game even if the numbers said he played OK. Yeah, but here’s what those numbers don’t take into account. I mean we’ve got things that we’ll do that are nonnegotiable that there’s no analytic that can do it. They don’t have one invented, so there’s numbers of things we take. But, if I’m going to two platoon, the numbers will matter and the efficiency numbers, numbers translated into 34 minutes – now, why do you think I’d say 34 minutes and not 40? (Reporter: Nobody plays 40.) Yeah, and if I did 40, everybody in the country could say, ‘Yeah, but if I made my guy do 40 minutes.’ So most teams, if you’re going to play between 32 and 34 minutes – the best players in the country (play those minutes) so every one of our guys gets rated to 34 minutes – what do those numbers mean?”Why’d you have Jay Bilas talk to your team and what did you think? “I wanted him to talk to the team because, the initial thing was what it meant to be tough. That it’s not swinging, it’s not, you know, there’s a mental toughness, there’s a physical toughness. And that was some of it and he kind of morphed it into a talk that was geared towards our team and what we’d be facing. And it was really good, really good.” It is Kentucky so this happens every year, but he mentioned in that talk that he thought this could be the most followed team in 20 years, probably referencing the Duke team in the early ’90s. Do you think that’s possible and does that worry you at all? “Doesn’t worry me. Is it possible? It’s Kentucky. Anything’s possible here. I mean, this basketball program, you know at the end of this year we’ll have 14 kids graduated. Six years. I’ll be stunned if we don’t have two semesters more of a 3.0 grade-point average. That means we could five players in the NBA with college degrees. And the number of draft picks could be a big number. I mean, somebody hit me with that in the last – I think it’s well, 10 years or so, so you know some guys will do this and say over the last 30 years, stuff has changed man. It’s different. But the last 10 years, the numbers, when you add up these guaranteed contracts, are $720 million. $720 million? And you’re talking my Memphis guys, and $720 million. And that doesn’t mean John Wall and Derrick Rose’s shoe contracts, which put it at 950. Not a thousand – million. You’re talking about a billion dollars. That’s like Rhode Island. And then, let’s do that another seven or eight years. Let’s be at $2 billion. It’s crazy and you could say, ‘Oh you’re just worried about the NBA.’ Even if I did, we’re winning more games than any other program. We’ve been to more Final Fours in the last five years. We’ve been to the final game twice. No one else has done that, I don’t believe – am I losing my mind? No one is near us in draft picks or numbers or (first) and (second draft picks). ‘Well that’s all you care about.’ OK, well, maybe it is. Is it? But it’s not. ‘You don’t care about your staff.’ They’re doing OK. “So, you know, the continuing to focus on them, now everything I’m doing is in a, can you run businesses like we run this basketball program and worry about your employees first? Can you run a business this way? So I’m with a friend of mine who has a bank, and he says, ‘You can. We pay our people more. Every employee after one year can request a $5,000 loan, interest free, and if they stay five more years that loan goes away.’ How would you like to work for that company? And what would you do if you were in there? They said Costco pays 30 percent more than the going rate. There average base salary is $20 an hour for their hourly workers. And everything they do is based on them. The economy went south and everybody was hurting. They gave their guys pay raises because they knew they needed it, because everything is struggling. Can you run a business the way we run this, which is based on everything is on – I don’t care what we play and how we play, or what you think, or I can coach or I can’t; it’s all them. And how can we stay focused on their development? And then what you find out when you do it is they really start caring about one another because they can. There’s a circle around them. Am I going to throw somebody – you followed me – would I throw somebody under the bus, now that you’ve watched me? Do you think I’d just try to say it’s this kid? You know I wouldn’t do it. When I interviewed, or whatever you want to call what I did with Dr. Todd and the people that met with me, I said, ‘I will never throw a player under the bus and if that’s the kind of guy you want that throws a kid under the bus to make me or you look good you’re, don’t, not me. I’m not the guy you bring in here. Because these will do stupid things and I’m not throwing them under the bus.’ Can you keep that circle around them that they know you got them and things go wrong, who am I blaming? Can you do that in a business sense? Can you run a business that way and what would it mean? Or do you have to do it the old way? “How did GE run their business? How did — and he’s a UMass graduate – for years and years? Tom (Leach), they were the gold standard of businesses. Matt (Jones), you’re a genius. How’d they run their business? Jack Welch was his name. How’d they run their business? (Jones: You’re asking the wrong guy.) OK. He took their company and the bottom 10 percent in any of their companies, you got fired. So if you were the bottom 10 percent in generating for the company, you were out. And the top 20 percent you got bonuses, you got pay raises, you got – and he just fostered that growth. And it did grow. It didn’t grow like Costco. It’s just, can you run, can you do what I’m doing and do that in a business sense? So, and I’m, you know, I’ve always made it about family and I’ve always made – this stuff is just, it’s on hyper. And it all happened because those five guys went to the NBA, went to the first round in my first year when I said, ‘Wait a minute, this is different.’ Can we – and I didn’t know. I didn’t know. Everybody says the same thing: ‘How do you do this?’ Anywhere I go people that I don’t know, people come up to (me), ‘I’m a Louisville fan but I’ve got to ask you, how in the world do you get a new team to buy in and do (this)?’ They trust. They trust. And they trust because there’s that circle around them when you’re here that it’s about you. It’s not about anything else. It’s about your growth. I’m not afraid to coach them. It doesn’t mean I’m–they run the program. It’s just that we make decisions based on them.” Is there a sense, and obviously it’s different with John Wall at that kind of level and maybe Julius Randle, etc., but is there a sense that you’ve seen a benefit maybe for some of these guys who are a little overwhelmed at first in the second year not just as a player but as a group, as a person, etc.? I mean, I can see a difference in the Harrison twins. “They all could use more time. Every one of the kids could have stayed and benefited. I would have benefited more than they benefited, but they would have benefited. Some of them needed to stick around and learn how to work – basically be professional at your sport. But they, the guys that stayed now, it’s greatly benefited them. Could they have gone? Yeah. Would Willie have gotten drafted? Yeah. Would the twins have been drafted? Yes. Would Alex have been drafted? They all would’ve been drafted. Dakari would’ve been drafted. Now would they have been drafted all in the lottery or down in the high teens? No. A few of them would’ve been in the second round. But they’d all have been drafted. So they’re staying. What my only recommendation to guys is, if you put your name in the draft, I’ll do everything I can to get you in the first round. If you stay, don’t come back thinking this is going to be easy. This will be harder than it was ever for you here because what were the reasons, what are they questioning? Each of the kids would tell me this is what they questioned about me. That will be answered if you come back. And you know what, to answer that it’s going to be really hard. So don’t come back here if you think this is the easiest thing you can do. Don’t do it. You go in the draft and I help you in the first round.”What’s the biggest change that you’ve seen in the Harrison? Is more on the court or is more off the court? “They’re in better shape. They’re better equipped to deal with stuff. They’re still growing right now. You still have to coach them and guide them. They, you know, they still have some habits that they flow back to when it gets crazy and nutty. But I’m just – they’re great kids. They’re both great kids. They’re both, you know, in the best shape right now they’ve been in, but I’m telling them it’s not good enough. They’ve got to get to another level. And then it’s, we have guys that can really compete with them, which is even making them better. Yesterday, Alex was guarding Andrew and doing OK so, you know. then you’ve got the little kid (Tyler Ulis) picking up. You’ve got Andrew now, or Aaron, like, ‘Hey, man, you know, you’ve got to go.’ So that competition has been great.”Have you ever seen a single postseason do so much for two guys as far as for the twins? Just in terms of turning around, one, I think turning around the perception of what they were hearing from the outside, they talked about getting bombarded by the negativity and now they’re sort of heroes.“It’s well, not really. They still, you know, what happens with some of you guys is you have an opinion and then you’ve got to prove that opinion right, so you’ll never change. ‘Here’s my opinion.’ Well, are you not watching? Hmm. ‘That’s my opinion. I’m not watching. I’m not. Then let me tell you why it’s right.’ So those two have been hit with that some. Like, what are you watching? How can you say that? ‘Well, ’cause it’s what I said six months ago and I’m sticking with it. That’s my story.’ But the good news for them is hopefully they’re comfortable and they know we have your back. Your job is to get better. Your job is to care about your teammates and to lead and understand how to do that. And Ithink they’re all doing it. The stuff we did down there, to see them cheer for each other. You know, you can say what you want, platooning takes it off them even more. How about that? I’m going to go out there and play so hard for 20 minutes. Really? For 20 minutes you just play and if doesn’t work I’m saying it’s me anyway. So now you can really go, and it’s not totally 00 it’s just I’m going to do my best, I’m going to play for my team. So it would make it easier if you buy in. Now the clutter is going to say, ‘ Ah, you can’t prove yourself in 20.’ Well, some guys need 35 minutes to play 20. It is true. They need 35 minutes to play 20. Well, then that means in 20 minutes you’re going to look like you’ve played eight. So you’re right, but it doesn’t matter, I can’t help you. Nothing I can do.” Does that help a guy like Alex even more than anyone to just say, ‘Go play 4 minutes as hard as you can,’ and maybe question whether he can go? “He may be a guy that needs more minutes just to get more comfortable playing because, you know, that’s the biggest thing with him is the comfort level in his game. But, you know, he is, he’s still, there are things he has to be able to do to be special. Because he has, you know, he’s just getting so much better. I mean, I look out and I can’t even believe he’s the same player. I can’t believe Willie. When I watch Willie, Willie was so good the other day, I’m like, oh my gosh. And then we all forgot that we would’ve won (if he didn’t get hurt). The thing that we forgot, what would we have done with Willie playing? I mean, it would have been different. Even the endings of games wouldn’t have been where they were. I mean, Willie was a dominant – Willie was a shot blocker, a guy that could change the game on both ends. And so now you see him and you’re like, whoa. But the bottom line is somebody has gotta to be able to dominate the game for spurts.”How many big guys could you play together at one time?“Well, the way I saw Willie play the other day–just, you have to figure out some offense, but Willie’s playing like he’s a 3. Like, we throw it ahead, he’s in the open court, crossing, throwing balls out and I’m like, ‘Holy jeez.’ And so, now, is he going to pull up and shoot 3s? No. But I told him and Marcus Lee, ‘Understand’ – Dakari – ‘if you can’t make free throws you can’t be in the game at the end. If you guys can’t make 15-footers, it’s harder for me to play you.’ And the reason is you basically aren’t being guarded and that means you gotta get closer to the goal. I can’t have three of you there. But you can play Willie and then could have Alex staying at 4 or Trey Lyles staying at 4. With a big, you could have Willie there with Karl, who can shoot it better, and Marcus Lee. How about that team? Now all of a sudden it’s nutty. Until we start playing, you know–what kind of zone team would it be with Willie, Marcus Lee and Dakari in the middle?”Tyler Ulis and then the two Kentucky kids, Dominique and Derek, how did you think they did and, obviously Tyler’s going to play, but how do you think those other two guys fit in with what you want to do this year?“I think they’ll (Willie and Hawkins) be fine. Yesterday, Derek Willis made every shot. Now, I know down in the Bahamas he missed every shot. But he made every shot yesterday. Yesterday I had them do a backboard touch for just me. You step and–so you had Willie, where did Willie touch? Above the square. Where did Marcus Lee touch? Above the square. Where did Derek Willis touch? Above the square. Where did Marcus Lee? Above the square. Dakari, right at the square, which was surprising. Alex, square. The twins were both about that far (holds fingers a couple inches apart) from the top of the square. So was Devin Booker. I’m trying to think, who am I–Dominique was at the square. And then Tyler was at the bottom (laughter) and everybody laughed. But it just shows you that, you know, we can talk how they jump. It’s basically, what’s your length? As much as your jumping, it’s are you a quick jumper? And then where can you go? I think Derek and Dominique are going to have their opportunities. Dominique knows, and he said to me, ‘They gotta guard me. If they’re not guarding me it’s hard, Coach, I know.’ So he’s really working on being able to make open shots. If he gets to seven feet, he’ll make it. The question is, if they’re playing him at seven feet and he’s at 17 and not being guarded, now what happens? Well, he doesn’t have to make them all. He just can’t miss them all.”