WBN Kentucky Wildcat Basketball Roundtable: Was Enes Kanter worth the risk?

Goodmorning and welcome back again to anoher edition of the WBN Wildcat Roundtable and wih this week’s edition, we look to pu o rest the Enes Kanter saga.  Also I should note that we have a new member on the panel this week.  Kent Spencer of Channel 36 in Lexington joins us and offers his insight.  Let’s get right to this week’s question and it does have a followup:

  From all appearances, there were red flags that Enes Kanter may not be eligible for this team.  I am referring to the attempt to reclassify DeAndre Daniels into the 2011 class and the brief pursuit of Royce White.  Now let’s just say that the presence of Kanter on the UK roster also deterred players like CJ Leslie and even Marcus Thornton from enrolling at Kentucky.  Based on the scenario that Kanter may have kept another front court player from committing, would you still say the Kanter commitment was worth the risk? 

C.J. Leslie is a guy that gets thrown around a lot, but I think Cal’s recruitment of Terrence Jones is what ultimately took Leslie to North Carolina State. Could they both have played here, sure, but try telling that to two kids with similar personalities and skill sets. Remember a John Wall – Eric Bledsoe scenario only comes around once in a blue moon.
 
Greg Edwards, Wildcat Blue Nation:  Enes Kanter was a gamble. Pure and simple. Was he worth the risk? Sure he was. With this team, chances are he delivers a national championship. Did his signing run anyone else off? I just don’t see that. I do not know of any big time center that is going to be a one and done freshman other than Kanter. Any one who came in was going to play behind him, and Calipari saw two serviceable backups in Harrellson and Vargas. If there was a big time chance taken anywhere it was on Vargas. So far he has proved to be anything but worth the trouble, but that can change if he is willing to do the work necessary.

Glenn Logan, A Sea of Blue:  Knowing what UK knew at the time, the Kanter commitment was definitely worth the risk. Leslie was not going to come to UK if Jones was, that’s for sure. Royce White was not a serious attempt, but more due diligence. I don’t think there was an attempt to reclassify Daniels, I think that was just his handlers using the possibility to generate buzz. It worked — Daniels moved up smartly in the rankings. Marcus Thornton was smart not to come here, he would have been buried on the bench even without Kanter, seeing only about the same time as Jon Hood is now.  If Kanter had been eligible, Kentucky is a national championship contender. If all the other guys combined came to UK instead of Kanter, that would arguably not have been true.

Jonathan North, Wildcat Blue Nation:  Knowing what I do now, that there was not a chance of Kanter playing, and the fact that Kentucky did know there was a chance Kanter would not play for them I don’t think it was worth the risk just for the fact that it put us in a huge hole this year. I don’t blame it all on Kanter and the coaching staff because I’m sure they were certain to have Daniel Orton back this year, but the fact is going after Kanter in what looked like a blind gamble hurt the team this year.

Brian Eldridge, Kentucky Sports Report:  I think working to get Kanter was worth the risk.  As long as no rules were broken to get him to UK, I don’t think it really forced UK to lose anything or anybody.  I feel like Terrence Jones was more a deterrent for Marcus Thornton and CJ Leslie than Enes’s presence.

Ken Howlett, A Sea of Blue:  Short answer: Yes, the Kanter recruitment was worth the risk. Players make decisions on where to play college basketball based on all types of data. Whether any of the mentioned players did not come to UK because of the presence of Kanter is pure guess work, but, even if every player publicly stated as such, in my opinion, signing Kanter was the right thing to do based on the information John Calipari had at the time of the big fellas commitment.

Paul Jordan, Wildcat Blue Nation:  I have to admit I am on the fence with this.  Yes, I like that Calipari will pursue the best players across the globe and that is what he is paid for.  And to be honest, this whole Kanter deal was supposed to be sorted out by August.  So at the time, Cal did not see it as a risk.  However, I do see Jonathan’s point in that you don’t sacrifice a season for just one player.  In retrospect, I guess you have to consider losing Kanter this way is the same as losing a player to injury for the season.  It’s Cal’s job to field the best team. 

That said, let’s say that Calipari starts recruiting another foreign player with similar ability as Kanter.  Would you want Calipari to go after this player or just concventrate on the player that he knows will get approved?  And Why do you feel that way?

Kent Spencer,  Channel 36  WTVQ:  To be honest, I don’t know if Cal would ever go down the same road again. Not a player with similar circumstances as Kanter. However, if he believes he can get a talented foreign player cleared through the NCAA, absolutely he’ll give it another try. Players that come from overseas are not exactly a red flag every time. There are all kinds of players from all kinds of nationalities playing college basketball in the United States. John Calipari simply wants to coach the best, and it doesn’t matter where they come from.

Greg Edwards, Wildcat Blue Nation:  We knew that these kinds of gambles are Calipari’s status quo. I can live with that. Kanter was a once in a lifetime kind of a player, who’s recruit
ment is going to open doors for others. It has made Calipari even more well respected in the international recruiting process, if for nothing else, then for the time and effort he put into Kanter. Anyone think that Kanter may influence a few other kids in the future? Let him hit the NBA and let’s just see.

Glenn Logan, A Sea of Blue:  I don’t think it’s fair for me to judge. Calipari knows far more about each situation than I do, and nobody makes a decision purely on the basis of potential. There are many variables that have to be considered, and each case is unique. It was eminently possible, and totally defensible, for the NCAA to have ruled differently than they did in the Kanter case. If Calipari had known at the time he recruited Kanter Mark Emmert was going to be NCAA president, it is possible that he would not have recruited Kanter. We just don’t know.  I think Calipari should evaluate his options and make the decision his experience tells him is best for Kentucky. I refuse to substitute my judgment for his on a matter for which I have far less information and experience than he does. In other words, I think we should all trust him to make the right call. He has certainly earned the right to be trusted in recruiting matters.

Jonathan North, Wildcat Blue Nation:  I don’t think we should go after players unless we are 100 percent certain they will play.

Brian Eldridge, Kentucky Sports Report:  I would support Cal in recruiting another Euro player as long as UK has enough depth to play at least an eight man rotation if the guy doesn’t get cleared. This year was rather unique because Nobody thought Orton would have gone pro and most people didn’t think Bledsoe would either. So that’s two starters right there, who would have helped this team tremendously.

Ken Howlett, A Sea of Blue:  First of all, in today’s amateur basketball environment, it is very difficult to know for 100% certain any player will not encounter NCAA eligibility issues: See — Derrick Rose and a host of others. Which is one reason I think a coach, especially the coach at Kentucky, should go after the very best players available to him, foreign or otherwise. Now, there are exceptions to this “rule,” such as attitude (a big deal to Calipari), involvement with unsavory types (oops, guess that knocks out any kid who played AAU ball), arrest history and so on. One also has to weigh the odds, so to speak. In the Kanter case, Calipari was assured by Kanter’s father that Enes did not receive monies over and above the allowed expenses. This turned out to be false, but it wasn’t known to Kentucky to be an untruth until it was much too late for UK to excuse itself from the table. Will the Kanter debacle cause Cal to be gun shy about pursuing an elite European talent in the future? That I don’t know, but if not, perhaps a change in UK’s “procedures” regarding investigating the veracity of the statements made by the player and his family, especially as it pertains to any monies received, is called for.  

Paul Jordan, Wildcat Blue Nation:  I think in the end, we have to trust Calipari and his judgement.  I don’t know if I would be thrilled if he went over another “pro leagues” player just because of all of the drama it is going to cause.  It would be tried in the media again, and I think turns out to be a huge distraction.  This whole issue has cause me to lose whatever faith I had in the NCAA and I would be uncomfortable letting another season rest in their hands, but bottom line is, if Cal wants a player and thinks he can help the team, I support it. 

And that wraps it up for the WBN Basketball Roundtable.  I know this was a longer episode than normal, but I wanted to put the Enes Kanter saga to bed and get some last opinions.  As always, feel free to comment or if you have a question you want the panel to tackle, just leave it in the comments.

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