Cal’s Kitchen Sink: Cats Trying It All to Reach Potential
John Calipari is trying to give away assists the way Oprah does cars.
The latest instance of trying to encourage his team to share the ball, Coach Cal has added to one of the oldest statistics in the game. For Kentucky’s purposes, no longer is an assist reserved only for a pass that leads directly to a basket.
“You get a normal assist,” Coach Cal said. “You pass it to somebody and score. You ready for this assist? You pass it to somebody and they miss the shot. Still giving you an assist. You pass it to somebody and they get fouled. Still giving you an assist. If you’re a big man and you outlet the ball and that guy leads to a break, I’m giving you an assist. If you throw it ahead and someone else throw it to somebody else for an assist, I’m giving you an assist, too.”
The change, of course, won’t be reflected on the official box score, but it certainly will be in the postgame locker room.
PJ Washington might have had a career-high 22 points as Kentucky (15-5, 5-3 Southeastern Conference) downed Mississippi State (14-6, 2-5 SEC), but that was hardly mentioned on Tuesday night. Instead, Calipari was talking about the 18 “assists” Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had, which included six of the traditional variety.
“There’s a hundred ways now to get an assist,” Calipari said. “But to get an assist you must start by passing the ball. Really? You cannot get an assist. Any pass you make is going to be an assist now. So when you end a game and you have one assist in 28 minutes, what is that telling you? Man, I passed one time in this game. Yeah, one time. I’m doing everything I can. Pass the ball to each other. Make the easiest pass you can make. Every extra pass we make, we become a good team, a better team.”
The new stat didn’t result in some instant change for the better, and Coach Cal wouldn’t expect it to. UK had only 11 traditional assists as a team in the win, but Calipari’s hope is that the new emphasis will lead to long-term improvement.
It’s hardly the only instance of Calipari trying everything he can think of to help his team reach its potential.
The Hall of Fame coach said on Monday that every team is different, that he goes by a new lesson plan every season. Now, with a nearly full complement of players finally available to him, he’s taking a page out of his playbook for the 2014-15 team that started the season 38-0 and going with a set rotation of sorts.
“In other words, guys are going to play three, four minutes, and if you’re really playing well, maybe you play an extra minute and if you’re not playing so well, maybe you come out a minute early,” Calipari said. “But there’s going to be a rotation, and instead of — they have got to take off — instead of being subbed now, well, every time — no, no, you’re in a rotation. So that’s done. “
Calipari’s goals with that are threefold. Most simply, having a more defined rotation gives him one less thing to think about during games. That’s useful for the coach of a team that needs a lot of, well, coaching. He also wants to take the pressure off his players and help them realize they are not being subbed out for small mistakes. And finally, he wants to get the two players whom the numbers have proven are most often on the floor when UK plays well to be on the floor more often.
“When we did the combinations, the common denominator was Wenyen (Gabriel) and Sacha (Killeya-Jones) a little bit but it was Wenyen,” Calipari said. “Every combination that played well and had good numbers had Wenyen in it. The others had Wenyen and Sacha. Like in one of the combinations, but Sacha was the other one. So we’re doing a rotation so those guys play more.”
Now, as luck would have it, Gabriel had two fouls by the 14:04 mark of the first half and Killeya-Jones “didn’t give us his best effort,” in Calipari’s words. As a result, they only combined to play 29 minutes.
Coach Cal didn’t conceive of his ideas to redefine the assist or revamp his rotation as a quick fix for an SEC game in January though. That perhaps makes fitting the fact that neither played out perfectly the first time out.
After all, Calipari has a bigger picture in mind.
“I told them prior to the game, every day my whole mentality is how do I make each individual better and I’m thinking about them writing notes to myself, how do I make this team better,” Calipari said. “Told the guys, I mean, I’m about you. This staff is about you. So when we make you uncomfortable so that you can play that way and be comfortable playing uncomfortable, it isn’t because we’re mad or hate you. If we’re getting on you to hold you responsible, accountable, hey, we’re about you.”
