Yeah this is why I basically just argue with people on here about who is better. What Pope has done this offseason is pretty much exactly what I wanted in terms of the type of player he is targeting. But I don’t know the budget so there’s no point in criticizing him for going after Griffin. And there are guys who we seemingly passed on, like Eaglestaff and Pierre, who I’m pretty sure Griffin is better than.
Rylan Griffen Visit Coming
- Thread starter FitchandMurray29
- Start date
Agreed, but I don't trust any of the numbers put out there, either...at least not at this point in time. As is, I see it like my or your salary...nobody's business AND no solid source for yours, mine or THEIRS. All I see is rumors.
I will say that, while we will have a strong nil budget, there are several teams that will have better, unless or until something changes with the whole broken system we are currently dealing with. Am I wrong here? I'm not sure I'd believe any numbers put out right now, by anyone and I do think we may be seeing teams spend while they can, outside of what they will be able to spend in a year or so. IDK but I'm not sure any of us do, either.
I don’t trust anyone’s numbers either but sometimes you can read the tea leaves. Our actions clearly indicate there were some guys we wanted and we weren’t willing to pony up more than we perceived the value to be. I think the rational conclusion is whether an immediate or long term reason, our NIL is limited.
I like Watkins enough but he's also 2.5 years older than Griffen. Watkins is pretty much what he is as a player unless he can somehow become a way better 3pt shooter.
Griffen as much as Im not a fan has shown he still has some upside that Watkins probably doesn't.
Griffen as much as Im not a fan has shown he still has some upside that Watkins probably doesn't.
Maybe you have a guy that sees say, 12 mil in his pool. He says just because I have 12 mil does not mean I have to spend 12 mil. Base on the analytics we have run we say player x is work 1.2 mil only. We will not go above that. They can come here, if they are good they can sign their own NIL as well as the 1.2mil. Pope seems like a guy that wants to show the donors we can win, we can coach and manage our funds and get the most out of our $$ and players. He came into this year with extra$$. He will probably go into next the same way.
I know nothing about that part of the inner workings of NIL but I do know he came into this cycle with money not spent last year.
If he continues to get guys like he has gotten so far this year we will be fine if we spent 10mil or 15 mil on our team.
That’s a very good point. Doing it that way keeps the donors happy because they are getting good ROI and it also weeds out players that aren’t team oriented. I’ll remember this post next time someone brings up this subject coz I hadn’t really thought about the donor ROI aspect of it that much.
What some of you fail to realize in terms of NIL is that we are retaining most of our guys. We are not seeing mass departures like some of these other schools. We have to pay our returnees as well. My preference would be to sign the Hawthorne kid as a developmental piece and be done. I think our roster is gonna be about as good as any assuming Oweh comes back.
I don’t necessarily think he’s needed but i’d defer to Popes decision of course.
Scoring is not going to be any kind of problem. Telll me you aren’t serious. Even if Oweh didn’t come back for some strange reason another scorer would jump to fill his shoes.
I’m just going to trust Pope.
Not that I have a choice. He’s not asking me my opinion.
Not that I have a choice. He’s not asking me my opinion.
I have done the club blue stuff and have gone to a few events. I know regular folks donating likes to see the biggest bang for the buck. Surely the larger donors if they want a guy enough, would be pressed to put in more to get said player. But again he has to fit into the system.
You are correct on both accounts. Amen to that. God bless you as well.
Right I personally as a KY fan would not want this I believe it would actually break a team spirit.
Griffin is rated in
imo we already have enough developmental pieces in some of the returning players, portal players and Freshman. I hope they all exceed better than how they finished
I would say you are probably correct. This is what I have been saying, that UK can not compete in the nil market. Unless some new giant multi billion company comes to lexington, uk has no Tyson or Walmart to donate. They have to hire a general manager to raise funds.
How specifically do you think a GM makes us competitive with Duke, Arkansas and BYU in NIL? Ultimately it still comes down to collecting money from the fanbase and revenue share, right?
Tell me where the scoring will come from other than oweh? You counting on a low % point guard, a Tulane transfer, a Bama transfer that isn't a proven scorer, an unproven freshman, Perry and Noah as carrying the scoring load? Chandler may be able to help some, but who is going to take the 30 3's a fame pope wants?
He would have to be creative, hit up former players, add something to ticket prices, get donations from bourbon and horse industry. Maybe something from concessions, radio advertising, apparel sales
Yes , I agree the NIL funds are limited . We still have, reportedly, 10- 12 million in NIL.
If I do , a simple math letter say in average 2 m / starter , that should leave 2 m for subs . To me guys like Williams, Noah, Perry, Chandler should not be paid more than 100- 200k. They are already getting tuition, room and boarding, turning and other perks and the honor to play for Kentucky.
So I think money is enough if used properly. We have enough staff on coaching team to figure it out. They also getting paid, and I would argue pretty well to make the right decisions.
In my mind only Oweh is worth something close to 2m . JQ could be worth too if healthy and play all a season. The rest of players so far , I don’t see anywhere close be worth 2 m / person. Hopefully we didn’t overpay for the PG or Garrison or the two freshman. The way Lewis left, it tells me that Pope and staff are rather conservative with the funds, which is good.
All we can do is to wait, and see the final roster . Hopefully, they are making the right decisions.
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Where did you see that, even after paying over $10M for this roster, that we still have 10-12M more? That would be encouraging for next year but I didn’t see anything confirming that number?
I understand your concerns. I really like the incoming players Pope has assembled though.
How can it be very public that we are top 8 or top 10 in terms of NIL spending, yet you guys are saying we "can't compete in the NIL market"?? How does that make sense?
We've already spent north of $10 Million (according to multiple sources) and STILL have money to spend, as we've seen us still going after a couple of prize portal members.
The whole "we can't compete in NIL" narrative is nonsense IMO. We clearly CAN compete. We just don't want to blow 40% of our budget on one player like some schools are willing to do (Kansas State, Washington, Indiana, etc.)
I do agree we need a GM (I've said so many times, my list would be):
Rajon Rondo (but this is tough with his grassroots empire he seems to be building)
Tayshaun Prince (Enough said. This would be a killer hire. NBA champion. Olympic Gold Medalist on the Redeem Team. NBA Front Office experience. Currently the VP of Basketball Affairs for the NBA Headquarters)
Chuck Hayes (Currently the Director of Basketball Operations for the Golden State Warriors, he would be a complete home-run)
Nazr Mohamed (Currently the GM of the OKC Blue and Scout for the OKC Thunder)
Keith Bogans (Former NY Knicks assistant and currently in a Player Development role with the Detroit Pistons)
Jodie Meeks (Currently a G-League Assistant Coach)
Pay one of these guys a 7-figure salary to come in and run our "front office" and get us DUDES and manage NIL and fundraising.
Get Rondo or John Wall associated with the program again somehow. Feel like they would do some good things and also have credibility with the younger players.
I think at this point we need the most ready player we can get and right now Watkins is rated as a top 10 portal option and like the 2nd rated SG. He is ready to step in and contribute right away without worrying about upside. Who knows, maybe in our offense he improves his shooting a little with more open looks. If he could just shoot 34% that would be enough IMO. If he could go 2-5, or 2-6 a game I’d take that in a heartbeat, just enough to keep the floor spread and respectable.
Wall is all UK, he would be perfect to bring on staff in a recruiting role at worst. If he is interested in more maybe start training him for a low assistant role. He would be amazing to help fundraise our other players in the league and recruiting HS kids.
The problem is that no matter how much pure talent you have, it doesn't do any good if you can't shoot the ball. The 2010 Cats are the perfect example.
If we got Watkins, I'd be over the moon still (obviously) and we'd be a top-3 team, but I just really worry that we would hit a wall in March when some team shoots better than average and packs it in on us.
No doubt any of those guys would be home run GM hires, they all have NBA contacts, previous experience playing here, and know all the guys in the league. This would be a phenomenal move. I bet Pope could get a hold of Nazr pretty easy. I’d assume he knows him more than some of the others, but I am sure they have all met or crossed paths before as well. It’s definitely a move we need to make soon. They is a huge asset t9 a program now. It’s almost like a full time AD for basketball only.
That is true and is a small concern of mine this year. I do think we have enough shot makers though to be ok. Luckily Pope schemes so many looks with bigs men starting plays to wings that it’s not as easy to pack it in as a traditional ball dominate PG team would be.
A little different but kind of like Deion’s staff at Colorado is filled with ex nfl stars. Would be awesome to see a bench full of Uk guys.
Fans don’t seem thrilled with Griffen but I like this possibility if he plays here.
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We are totally completing.
How many do you think are spending more?
Do you more mean we can't just overdog dominate? Because that would be true but Bezos doesn't get to do the sackcloth and ashes routine because Musk has even more assets.
Sure, there are a very few nearly bottomless pockets programs like Duke and BYU and after that we are in a slightly larger group of the baggiest though several more have the capacity to jump in the deep end of the pool but sort of lack the will/inclination or focus on hoops.
Having some constraints doesn't not come close to meaning we can't compete.
Almost every program has some budget, we will be able to manage a lot of years "only" coming in fifth or eight in outlay with a spike here and there.
We had significant turnover, we have guys coming back, and we still seem to at least be able to get another couple million level guy.
Cheddar has been spread around pretty heavily. There is no poverty to be crying about.
Lowe is a bucket getter who will thrive with our pace and spacing.
Lowe and Oweh - both high double digits. 33-35 ppg.
Chandler, Williams, Jelavic, Johnson - lower double digit scorers. 40-45 ppg.
Just a rough estimate. 73-80 points from those 6. Obviously could skew a bit, but feels pretty close.
Still have JQ and MD with garbage points and Noah/Perry off the bench.
Realistically, if everyone is healthy those guys will steal some production from the others and we will be a bit more balanced. No reason to think we can’t be in the 85+ ppg range.
And despite Pope wanting 30 threes per game last year, we only shot 25 and averaged 84 points. That was with a team that “couldn’t get its own shot” according to the experts. Should be more dynamic athletically this year, with Lowe’s penetration. Potential for more transition opportunities as well.
Edit to add - left out BG who falls in that garbage buckets, occasional three category.
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One of these guys would be fine, as long as they have some kind of business experience and sales. To me, the key is to get former players back involved, make them feel part of the program again. Guys like sam bowie, Derek anderson, bam, fox, herro
Your theory is great. Have you seen Lowe play? I have not. If he can create, and get some lay ups, great, but his low 3 point % is a concern as is Griffin if he picks uk. Personally, I prefer eaglestaff as he has put up so big scoring games. A guy that gets hot at tourney time could carry uk
I’ve seen him play a little bit. Had some others who know his game better tell me he was a nice pick-up for us.
Not any more worried about his three point percentage than I was about Butler’s. He was 35% as a freshman on lower volume, and is 89% at the line. Trust that he will be more selective with us and Pope will put him in the right spots to succeed from three.
Still feel like we need one more flamethrower. Got a lot of guys who I am comfortable taking 3 threes a game. Not sure how many I want to see shooting 7-8 (and the guys who could probably won’t play big minutes for other reasons).
I think Griffin can be a guy like that. I would have no qualms with us picking up Eaglestaff.
Think we are already ok. Would like to see a bit more firepower.
Isn’t the founder of Outback Steakhouse a UK grad? Anyone know how much he is worth?