24 hours into the “Free Enes” movement and I have to admit that I am weary … both of the constant media obsession with our basketball program and the fact that I have been chasing dead leads all day on this Kanter situation. I am not saying that I am well connected into the fiber of Kentucky athletics … but in a year and a half of devoting most of my free time to a UK site, I have amassed a small group of people who email me with information … and more often than not, their information has been on the mark.
And the one thing that found out today? Absolutely no one knows what is going on with the Enes Kanter situation. And that is the important thing to keep in mind as we anxiously await the NCAA decision in about a week and a half. It’s all hearsay and rampant speculation. Everyone has an opinion and they are not afraid to blast it on twitter, facebook, or whatever you medium of choice may be.
However, as we end Day One of the Enes Watch, there are a few things going around that people are starting to accept as being the truth simply because some famous people are saying them. At this point, they are all opinions and we know what they say about those:
KANTER WAS A CALCULATED RISK
Lots of people like this point of view and people like Gary Parrish subscribe to it. Simply put, he thinks that Calipari accepted Kanter to come to UK, knowing that there was a chance that he would not gain eligibility. Parrish seems to think that Calipari enrolled Kanter, knowing that he may not ever get to coach him. I really don’t buy this, partly because of the recent scramble to get DeAndre Daniels It was almost an act of desperation to get Daniels, and this may be partly because things started to get complicated in the Kanter situation.
I really don’t think Calipari will risk the difference between a Sweet 16 team and a Final Four team on the whim of the NCAA and that he was willing to go into say September and October not knowing if a key cog of his team would be available. That said, I do think that all the Kanter documents were fully vetted by UK and that Kentucky had a good feeling that Kanter would be a Wildcat with no problem.
THE PETE THAMEL “MISQUOTES”
This has become quite a debate in the Bluegrass and at the moment you have a major newspaper and a UK fansite battling over the semantics over what these misquotes means. In case you missed it, Pete Thamel quoted a “source” and as with the Eric Bledsoe story, the source came out and complained that his quote had been taken out of context.
There is a camp that says that while this may be true, that does not detract from the main story … that Kanter received money. And then things disintegrated into one of the biggest nerdfights in 2010. As for my view on this? I am somewhat in the middle, and I do agree that the misquoted college assistant coach had nothing to do with the topic at hand. Yet on another level, it does.
You see, this is the second time that Thamel has been caught in an out right lie concerning the sources in his story. And one lie may be overlooked, two can not. Pete Thamel is too good a reporter to just start making stuff up, yet he has done so twice when talking about Kentucky basketball. You can argue that he is obsessed and has resorted to making up quotes to provide a sense of validity to his stories. I really don’t know what to think about this.
Whenever we are faced with a story that is derogatory to Kentucky, I always say “consider the source”. I don’t know what it means when you have a somewhat reputable source that has made up quotes twice in three months. Are we reading too much into it or is it sloppy story writing by Thamel? And when Thamel’s main source for this story could not (or was not willing) to provide the documentation for his claims, it starts to look a little fishy.
THE MONEY
In the end, it all comes down to the money. We know that Kanter was paid, but how much? Thamel’s story seems to point at around $100,000 for a three year period. Now when you consider that the tuition at the prep schools in the US run around $30,000 a year, these is not an especially troubling amount. $100K is right around average for the three years room, board, and expenses that we know Kanter received . If Kanter did receive money, it was not a great amount. And that just does not make sense to me, considering that Kanter’s parents are said to be quite well off and have been very careful to not accept any money that could affect his eligibility.
And the $6500 a month that is claimed? It just seems so trivial when you look at the amount of money Kanter could lose in the long run. It just seems like chump change to me, and seems kind of fishy.
But of course, that is just my opinion. What is yours? I set up a poll on the right hand side of the site where you can give your opinion on what may happen. I have a feeling that it may be a long week or so before we get any type of answer from the Kanter decision, so we will kept you abreast of any other breaking stories.
But let’s not lose sight of the fact that Joker has a football game to win on Saturday and we shall launch more into football the next couple of days on the site.
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