NBA point guards Derrick Rose and Tyreke Evans’ success stories have only served as encouragement for a decision that didn’t need much thought for Kentucky freshmen John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins after their first college season came to an end: Bye-bye Wildcats, hello NBA lottery.
Rose and Evans, starters for the Chicago Bulls and Sacramento Kings, respectively, have transitioned fantastically into the pros after spending only one season in school under coach John Calipari at Memphis. Calipari, now with Kentucky, is some kind of first-year player virtuoso. Wall, a point guard, figures to go No. 1 overall, and Cousins, a forward, is expected to be off the board not long after.
And what about the two other Kentucky freshmen and a junior who also declared themselves ready for the NBA? First-round picks, too.
Junior forward Patrick Patterson is the only player who’s left the door open for a return to the Wildcats next season, saying he’s “half in, half out,” while guard Eric Bledsoe and center Daniel Orton look confident in going for the leap. They can all opt to change their minds by May 8 as long as they don’t hire agents, but that seems unlikely. Calipari, while happy for his pupils, will have to work some more recruiting magic to make Kentucky (35-3 in 2009-10) a powerhouse again next season.
Wall was a favorite to go pro even before the season began, and he backed up the hype. His mind-blowing play that generated 16.6 points and 6.5 assists per game led the Wildcats to regular-season and conference tournament championships before they fell to West Virginia in the Elite Eight. He set a single-season school record with 241 assists. Many of those went to Cousins.
Cousins was at his best when not in foul trouble, something he struggled with mightily — along with a temper problem — early in the season. He averaged 15.1 points and 9.8 rebounds per game and book-ended Kentucky’s monster guard/forward duo.
But if it wasn’t Wall or Cousins dominating the game, it was Bledsoe or Orton, the two other excellent freshmen who lived in their teammates’ shadows — hence the mild surprise when they announced the move to the NBA. The speedy Bledsoe averaged 11.9 points per game and was one of the Wildcats’ best three-point threats. Meanwhile, Orton kept Kentucky’s paint safe when Cousins was in foul trouble. He was a shot-blocking machine.
Patterson averaged a career-low 14.3 points per game, which might be one of the reasons he’d like to come back next year, along with the possibility of an NBA lockout. However, he backed out of the NBA Draft last season when many thought he was ready, which only tilts the balance in favor of him leaving this time around.
Patterson’s dipping numbers, down from 17.9 points per game last season, are a reflection of the kind of talent Calipari brought along after signing with Kentucky. A star alongside guard Jodie Meeks last season, Patterson was only the third-leading scorer this season. It’s a misleading statistic because — as with Bledsoe and Orton — if he had been the program’s featured player, he would have been a standout. There would be no “half in, half out” decision to make; it’d be an all-in while holding a full house.
Luckily for Patterson, Bledsoe and Orton, NBA scouts will see beyond their numbers, which should be a huge sigh of relief for Orton and his modest 3.4 points and 3.3 rebounds per game. They’re as good as gone. Calipari will be left with only five returning players from this season’s team.
But if anyone can rebuild a team, it’s Calipari, someone who transformed a team not good enough to make the NCAA Tournament one year into one of the Big Dance’s No. 1 seeds the next. The coach, who was a Mario Chalmers’ desperation three-pointer away from winning a national championship with Memphis in 2008, lost Rose to the NBA as the No. 1 pick in 2008 only to replace him with Evans in 2009, keeping the Tigers among the elite teams. He then left to Kentucky, where he turned an NIT team into a championship contender.
Calipari’s 2010 recruiting class, as usual, is among one of the top in the nation. Six-foot-10 Turkish center Enes Kanter has verbally committed, as has 6-5 slashing shooting guard Stacey Poole. Kentucky still doesn’t have an answer from point guard Brandon Knight, a crème-of-the-crop recruit, but the Wildcats, along with Kansas and Connecticut, are in the mix for his services.
Having Calipari at the helm certainly won’t hurt the Wildcats in their hunt to replace their departing young guns with other fresh-blooded talent. Kentucky will be back as one of the top teams next season. But before that — and a la North Carolina in 2005 — several Wildcats will hear their name called aloud on June 24, date of the 2010 NBA Draft.
Happy endings for everybody.
