After a 1-5 start, John Calipari knew he needed to make some changes. The first was to send Cam’Ron Fletcher home to help the freshman get into the right frame of mind and send a message to his team about what is and is not acceptable in Kentucky. The second is to ask three players to introduce themselves and help manage the attitude of the team, or, as Calipari said, the “non-negotiable ones”.
“I just told them that I’m going to have fun with this,” said Calipari this morning. “I’m going to have fun. We have appointed three guys to be leaders to end all non-negotiable attitudes, as you accept coaching. I’m not dealing with any of this. Players will negotiate. So this is off my plate. Trying to give them more control over how we are playing offensively and less about me. “
Calipari did not specify who the three players are, but reading between the lines Davion Mintz, Olivier Sarr and Keion Brooks is a good guess.
“I’m going to let it happen and leave it at that and you have to have older guys. You had to have guys with experience in this to give you a hint, but the goal of that is to forget to lead and worry about playing better. Worry about being more engaged with our team. But these three – and the reason I made three, I want them to support each other and basically run this team. ”
When asked, neither Mintz nor Lance Ware revealed who the leaders are, but said they all agree with the new plan.
“The coach called some guys in the office and talked about taking the stress out of having to deal with non-negotiable things from him,” said Mintz. “This should be the responsibility of those he selected and everyone is on board. Everyone agreed with that and jumped on board. That’s what it is. “
“We know who these three are in the locker room and that is where it will stay,” said Ware. “They are going to deal with things, the little attitudes that most people have, especially when you come to Kentucky and are around other big players, you are going to have to learn what you can and cannot do. Not everything you do in high school is acceptable. I know that sometimes at school I would do some things that I would never do here. Stuff like that. Just trying to keep everyone under control, in line so that we don’t have small problems that we can easily avoid. “
What are “non-negotiable”?
“Controlling your attitude,” said Mintz. “Controlling, can I make this move for someone else? He said something like, don’t think less of yourself in terms of who you are as a person, but, at the same time, think less of yourself when it’s time to help someone else. Many of these things are non-negotiable. When he’s talking, when he’s trying to teach us, he’s been here for 30 years and his resume speaks for itself. It’s time to listen, so these things over there are non-negotiable. “
So why would a man who earns more than $ 9 million a year ask players to deal with one of their job responsibilities? Calipari has long preached the importance of teams being driven by players, today remembering how last year’s team only met after he was kicked out of the game against Arkansas. Add in the fact that this year’s team was unable to overcome their growing pains with a normal non-conference schedule and Calipari can say that his frustrations are having an adverse effect on the players.
“If you think I’m happy with this album, you’re crazy. You know me well enough. But I am not going to let that change the way I approach it, because that is what I can do for these young people. And the only way to do the work I do every year is to have fun with it. And I always have fun training. 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 those things that frustrate coaches, it’s your job to eliminate them so that I can have fun and train that way, which is how you want me to train. “
“The most important thing for me is that I want to have fun doing this,” he repeated later. “This is the secret spice of what we do. Yes, I am aggressive and I consider them responsible and of a high standard, but I am having fun. And I think they can feel it. There is currently a level of frustration because of things that are not normally negotiable in this program. “