Over the next two days, we’ll post a transcript of John Calipari’s
preseason media roundtable in three parts. To close it out, Coach Cal discusses Tyler Ulis, Trey Lyles, what he’s looking for out of Willie Cauley-Stein and more.Has Derek improved his defense enough?“Yeah, but they’re going at him. Who was he guarding yesterday? He and Marcus Lee I think were guarding each other yesterday. But he’s, you know–the one thing I told him, all of them: You are responsible for you. You know I’m not throwing you under the bus. You know I’m going to love you. You know I’m going to develop you. You know we’re going to help you be the best version of you. But you are responsible for you. Some of you guys need to come in here and shoot free throws. You’ve got the gun, you’ve got managers, make 200 a day. You are responsible for you. If you don’t make free throws and you’re shooting them at a 45-percent clip, you ain’t playing the–you can’t ever be what you want to be. And you control that. Get in here. So that’s the kind of stuff. And I told them, I don’t want to coach them until October. I’ll look in right now. We got two hours a week, I’ll use 25 minutes of it watching them play pick-up if I want. But short of that, I’m going to be gone for the next two week starting tomorrow. So, you know, I haven’t–they were at my house and I had an individual meeting with them when we met at my house and that’s it. I told them, ‘I’ll start coaching you in October.’ What we did in October, I was with them enough. And so now–it hasn’t changed. The Bahamas stuff helped us and scared every recruit. I mean, how many seniors are out there? (None) Say that again. (None) Really? So what do you think the other coach is saying? (What if they all come back?) Yeah. You say they’re all leaving, but they all came back last year. You got guys that–and the way I talk, I’m not going to lie to them. I mean, stuff’s hard here. It’s no joke. This is a man’s decision. So you’ll have guys that, you know, ‘I’m not going to do Kentucky.’ It’s good for us. It’s like, I’d rather learn it now than have a kid come here and know he’s not good enough because then we gotta deal with that.”John, what did you think of the story that we heard in the Bahamas about Tyler standing up to DeMarcus Cousins and insisting that he wanted the call DeMarcus insisting that he would not get the call?“I didn’t see it, but I can imagine it happened with DeMarcus. But, you know, when I met with Isaiah Thomas to try to talk–I wanted him to tell me what I needed to do because I’ve never really coached a guy this small. I said, ‘To be in the NBA at this size’ – Isaiah’s like a beast – ‘did you lift?’ ‘No, this is my dad?’ So some of that Tyler’s going to have to do. He gained 10 pounds this summer. Well, now you’ve gotta gain another 10, 15 pounds. You’re just gonna have to. But the other part, he said your advantage is in the backcourt in all cases. So you pick up, you make it bothersome for people anywhere you can. You figure out how you’re going to have to personally play pick-and-roll. And he said from 15 feet and in it’s your disadvantage. I said, ‘Well how many of you guys get posted.’ He said there is not a single post-up point guard in the NBA. So you don’t have to worry about that. Think about that. In the old days, we would post up the point guard. We would say that point guard can’t guard–no one does it anymore. And then he said, ‘A guy’s gonna come at you and score or do something and when he turns around he’s gonna know you’re still there, that you haven’t moved.’ Basically what he was saying is you’re going to get in a situation like that with DeMarcus and he’s gotta know you ain’t budging. Ain’t budging. So some of the stuff that I need to teach, he’s already kind of done. But I told him when he came here: ‘If you don’t plan on being an NBA player, don’t come here. I don’t want to see it. You’re not coming here. And don’t let me hear all these people say, well, he finally got a four-year point guard.’ I don’t want to hear that crap either. So I think that’s when he said, ‘Well I’m coming then.’ Because that he wants.”Is this Hall of Famer Isiah Thomas you’re talking to or current Isaiah Thomas?“Current one that’s tiny that I saw get 35 against John Wall that I said let’s go to dinner because I need to talk to you.”What have you seen from Trey Lyles? I was talking to Willie earlier and Willie went on and on about Trey plays the game.“Yeah, it’s just, we don’t know yet. He’s gotta come back and see where everything is. I’m watching him do the individual stuff where there’s no contact and stuff and he’s, you know, he’s a tough kid. He’s a skilled player. It’ll be interesting. It makes us even bigger. But you need size but people gotta make shots. So what we were able to do now, again, Dominique made some, Derek made some. Now do you replace and can those make some or do others have to make more? Which is fine. You don’t have to have five guys out there that all can make shots. It’s nice if you do, but you can’t have just one. I think teams will go back, they’ll run into the lane like they did my first year and they’re going to play a zone. They’ll run back, they’ll shoot it and how many guys will they send to the glass? Maybe one, and that guy better be close or he’s running his butt back. And then they’re going to play a 2-3 zone or whatever zone they play. That’s what I would think.”When you think back to the spring and all these decisions being made and they start trickling out, what are you thinking one by one when they decide to come back and how much that changed your initial plans?“We don’t make plans until they’re done, until that draft stuff’s over. So we don’t know what we’re looking at. I don’t waste time. I don’t get any stress over it because I don’t know. The one that was really fast was Willie. And after the game, that next morning, I went in and congratulated him on a great year. I said, ‘Two years ago, no one knew who you were. Kansas didn’t even recruit you.’ Bill Self said, I saw him play and he had two points and I’m thinking why is Kentucky recruiting him? And two years later you’re in the top-15 picks. I want to tell you I’m proud of you. I remember going to your high school the first time. Remember what I saw you doing?’ ‘You saw me playing kickball.’ ‘And the second time I saw you?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘You were playing tennis. So I didn’t even know if you liked basketball. Now you’re this.’ The next day, he came back and he said, ‘Can I meet with you?’ I said sure. He said, ‘I want to come back.’ I went, ‘What? Why do you want to come back?’ He told me and I said OK. Which then I thought Alex would come back because he and Alex were really close. I didn’t think the twins would come back. The only reason Dakari explored–when I grabbed Dakari I said, ‘Do you want me to look into your NBA stuff.’ He said no. I said OK. I asked Marcus Lee. He said no. I said OK. But when I was getting feedback a couple of the teams threw Dakari’s name in. And so I told him, ‘You may want to reevaluate and get with your mom.’ Kendrick Perkins has done pretty good in the NBA and he’s still playing and he was the 29th pick in the draft. Now I think emotionally and every other way he wasn’t ready, but if someone’s going to draft you you gotta think about it. So that is how it played out. And then with the twins, I thought they would be encouraged to leave. That’s just what I thought they would be. And then the more I kept hearing, I was hearing, you know what, I don’t think they want to go. So they came in and we had a five-minute meeting. I told them, ‘If you come back, it’s going to be difficult. Here’s what they’re saying. That will be cured, but you’re going to have to work. If you leave, I’ll help you get in the first round. Do whatever I can to make that happen.’ They came back, ‘We’re staying.’ I was on a plane going somewhere and they called and said, ‘We’re staying.’ I can’t remember where I was going.”How much did it hurt the twins’ development to arrive late last season?“Killed them. Killed them. And what it killed was their conditioning. So it took them until the middle of January to really–think about the play–couldn’t run back, didn’t want to keep playing so they’d do a body language thing. And then they’d look, is anybody watching? Because they were trying to stop. I mean, you play at the pace and all that stuff. It was a killer for them. And by the end of the year you saw and now you’re starting to see again where their weight is down. But I told them, I want you even to be in better shape than you are. And then playing the way we’re playing I think’s going to help both of them. I think they’ll both–when people see they’re athletic. People are saying, ‘Well, they’re not real athletic.’ Compared to what, me? What are you talking about? I mean, literally touching the top of the square and running so fast and then you’d say, well, why don’t they run like that and jump like that all the time? It’s hard. You gotta be in great shape to do that. Or you just go at your pace and you jump like you want. So that’s the stuff that they’re cracking. And they’re both–I’m just telling you–they’re great kids. They’re not a bit, nothing–yes, sir. No, sir. Nothing.”What did Devin Booker do to make you more comfortable to put him on that first team in the Bahamas?“That was just based on trying to balance the teams. That’s the only reason I did it. I can’t remember, I could have had Derek Willis there and put him on the other group but then I thought that group would be too small. So you would have had (Booker, Hawkins and Ulis in the backcourt). Too small. That’s what I did.”What does Booker bring to this team? Is he just a shooter?“No, he’s–no. He’s a basketball player. He settled a little bit too much for jumpers. He didn’t dominate as much as he could have but he was trying to feel it out. And we got tired at the end. The guys went with–it never ended. I’m glad we did it. It was the best thing we’ve done and guys learned about themselves. We learned about each other. We were able to do stuff. Think about me trying to two-platoon without having that. I mean, it would have been near impossible. And I tell you that because the clutter that they’re going to hear, all the outside stuff that’s basically trying to slow us down and slow down and convince them that you can’t do it, it’s hard now because they saw it. You know, and for someone to say ‘you’re getting screwed’ and this and this, he’s looking like, ‘He’s got my back. It’s better for me. If I had to play 32 minutes you’d see all the stuff I can’t do.’ “Speaking of which, Tyler Ulis vows that he can dunk a basketball.“No. There’s no way. Not what I saw.”Is it safe to call Willie a free spirit and is there any challenge in that with him? What’s that dynamic been like with him?“The only thing with Willie is he’s gotta stay in our circle. Like, you can have the clutter in the circle up here and you can be down here or over here or over there, but you gotta be in the circle. You can’t be outside the circle. You can never lead the circle from outside the circle. You gotta be in this and they all gotta know that you’re in here with us. If you try to separate yourself as a player from the pack, you can never serve them, you can never lead them. They don’t want to hear it. They think you’re about yourself. So being a free spirit and how he is, he’s a good kid. He’s just gotta make sure he’s inside this circle of what we’re doing because if we’re to be really special – what Jay (Bilas) talked about – someone has gotta be that player. I’ll give you an example: We had a lot of good players last year. When we played Connecticut, who was the best player on the court? (Shabazz Napier) And that’s why they won. When we played Kansas in that final game, who was the best player on the court? (Anthony Davis) My guy. And we won. I’m just telling–so now, on this team, when we play in that kind of game, are they going to have a player better than we have? And so who would that be? Can it be Willie? I mean, if you watched the other day you’d say, ‘Holy jeez.’ He’s more comfortable, he’s more confident, but he’s gotta be in the circle. You can’t be that guy from outside. You’ve gotta be in the trenches with them.”Is it safe to say that you’ve got more good players than you’ve had here but maybe not that one transcendent guy?“Well, but then here’s the problem: When you start talking John Wall and Anthony Davis and even DeMarcus (Cousins), you’re talking about–look at them. So now you’re trying to compare these guys to those guys. It’s not fair. What it is: Do you have someone that’s better than everybody else in the country? I don’t care if it’s better than I’ve had in 2012. I just need to know he’s better than anybody in 2014-15.”Do you?“I don’t know because I can’t even tell you names of other players right now who came back. I don’t even know.”The clutter will say you can’t develop that one player because there’s only 20 minutes a game with the platoons.“Yeah, maybe. We’ll see. You can say it and then you try to prove it right when you say it.”You gave EJ Floreal a scholarship. Talk about that decision and him as a kid on your team.“It’s always fun when you scholarship walk-ons. And I’ve done it here just about every year I’ve been here and how appreciative their family is and how appreciative the young man is. And EJ really did a good job, especially at the end of the year when I needed him to really guard our guards like they were going to be guarded in games. And he really, athletically–his skillset is not up to these guys, but his athleticism is. So he can go in and guard and rebound and do stuff. He just doesn’t have the skillset that they have. And the other thing is they all like him. He’s part of our team.”