With rumors swirling that NBA teams like the Phoenix Suns are targeting newly minted NCAA championship coach Jay Wright, he came out Friday and said he hasn’t been offered any NBA jobs.
“When you win a national championship, it gets blown up into you’ve been offered,” he told ESPN’s Dana O’Neill. “I have not gotten offered any jobs.”
He added that he hopes he can remain at Villanova.
“I can say right now that in my mind I plan to stay at Villanova,” “But I also don’t want to be a liar. I want to stay. I know I want to stay, but I just say I hope I can stay because I’ve learned from the past how crazy things can be. I hope I can stay at Villanova because this is where I want to be.”
Wright spoke with the Philadelphia 76ers in 2009 after leading Villanova to the Final Four, and it’s not too hard to imagine the Sixers coming after him again, perhaps in a year especially if the Wildcats do well again next year.
“When I went through it before, the offers were new and it was shocking,” Wright told ESPN. “Now I kind of know what they’re going to be, and I’m really comfortable. I want to stay. I really want to stay.”
Meantime, Larry Brown, the Hall of Fame coach from SMU, told SNY.tv that Wright, 53, is in a good spot.
“I just think what Jay did and what he’s built and what he’s about, he’s in a perfect place,” Brown told SNY.tv at a coaches’ clinic at Roselle (N.J.) Catholic. “He’s making our game better.”
Brown said the same applies to Kentucky coach John Calipari, who has also been linked to numerous NBA jobs and also spoke at the clinic.
“They all talk to me about it,” Brown said. “What Cal’s built, what Cal’s about, he’s in a perfect place, he’s making our game better. They need guys like them coaching college kids so when they get up to the pros they’re prepared to play, that’s the problem. The young kids aren’t really ready to play…We need coaches who teach kids how to play.”
He added: “The Final Four was the greatest because they’re all seniors. There’s nothing wrong with one-and-done, but generally if you stay four years, or three years, when you do go to the NBA you’re going to be prepared to play. And the worst thing I think you can do is go to the NBA and not be prepared.”
Brown had a word of advice for any college coach considering making the jump to the NBA.
“I think generally the college coaches get a bad team and then everybody’s so impatient,” said Brown, the only coach to win an NCAA and an NBA title. “The only way I would go [to the NBA] is if you’re in charge. I don’t want somebody telling me who to draft, who to play, how to play. If they let a guy be in control of basketball and have people around him who love him and have a feel, it’s great.”
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