With five of his players headed to the NBA, could Kentucky coach
John Calipari be following suit?
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reported that
Calipari has interest in the Chicago Bulls vacancy created by Monday’s firing of
Vinny Del Negro.
ESPNChicago.com also listed a slew of potential replacements for Del Negro, including
Doug Collins, Maurice Cheeks, Eric Musselman, Phil Jackson, Jeff Van Gundy, Byron Scott, Sam Mitchell, Tom Thibodeau, Lawrence Frank, Dwane Casey, Avery Johnson and
Calipari,
Yet Calipari denied interest, posting on his Facebook page: “Every year you will hear my named mentioned for NBA jobs because I coached in the league before. I’m very happy at Kentucky.”
He also told ESPN’s Andy Katz that he had no interest in the job.
Calipari’s eight-year, $31.65 million deal is already the richest in men’s college basketball. Yet Kentucky AD
Mitch Barnhart said he is working on a contract extension for Calipari.
“We have begun initial discussions on restructuring his contract so that he’s the coach at Kentucky until he retires,” Barnhart said in a statement.
Calipari went 72-112 in two-plus seasons with the Nets in the late 1990s. He spent the 1999-2000 season as an assistant with the Philadelphia 76ers before returning to college at Memphis, which he coached for nine seasons.
In his first year at Kentucky, the Wildcats reached the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament, falling to West Virginia at the Carrier Dome. Five players from that team, including four freshmen, and junior
Patrick Patterson have declared for the NBA Draft. Freshman point guard
John Wall is likely to be the No. 1 overall pick in next month’s Draft.
If Calipari were to land in Chicago, he would be reunited with
Derrick Rose, his former point guard at Memphis and the NBA Rookie of the Year last season.
Calipari is also close with NBA MVP
LeBron James, who is likely to be pursued in free agency by the Bulls, who are under the salary cap and have money to spend.
Calipari also shares the same representation firm as high-profile free agents
Dwyane Wade and
Chris Bosh.
Despite losing four freshmen and missing out on prep forwards
Terrence Jones (Washington) and
C.J. Leslie (N.C. State), Kentucky is bringing in a strong class that includes forward
Enes Kanter and guards
Brandon Knight and
Doron Lamb. Knight hasn’t signed a National Letter of Intent, opting to sign scholarship players instead.
(The AP contributed)
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