ducky23 said:
This decision is going to come down to how we see ourselves as an Academic/Athletic institution. Are we going to insist on seeing ourselves as the only honest program in a sea of corruption. Are we going to continue to view our academics as a crutch and not as an advantage. Is Cal such an amazingly unique place, that the only coach who could possibly navigate its unruly waters is someone who has been here before and "gets Cal?"
I think if you abide by those rules (which I'm not necessarily disagreeing with) then your ceiling is only going to be so high. You can hire Decuire and be satisfied with a clean program that graduates its players and may get an occasional victory in the tournament. And i think for a lot of us, that will be fine. (and again, I'm not saying this is necessarily the wrong take).
But if your aspirations are higher, if you dream of finally breaking thru and making a final four, I think you gotta think differently and break a few dishes along the way. We have to be able to level the playing field when it comes to recruiting. That means spending money on a practice facility. That means getting your hands a little dirty and "lowering yourself" to actively making connections in the AAU community. It means taking kids who may not be perfect academic fits (but at least someone who you can work with - someone like a Jason Kidd as a student athlete).
I'm not saying we go out and hire Rick Pitino. But we also don't need to tie two hands behind our back by using our so called uniqueness and academic prowess as an excuse rather than an advantage. There is no reason we can't raise our expectations while still coloring within the rules.
And if we are going to be serious about raising our expectations, we need to hire someone out of our comfort zone. And that's not necessarily Kidd (though I'd be fine with him). There are several other guys out there (like Nate Oats, Shaka Smart - if fired, Becky Hammon, Mike Anderson) who would all have higher ceilings than Decuire (but maybe not "perfect" fits).
I never go with the "only honest program in a sea of corruption" excuse. You choose to play the sport. You can't control what others do.
Regarding breaking dishes, it depends on what dishes. Some dishes, Cal is not going to break. If Monty's issue with dealing with AAU was dealing with unsavory characters, I disagree with him strongly. As long as you aren't unsavory, you have to deal with who you have to deal with. If his issue is not PAYING unsavory characters, well, that is a dish we aren't breaking.
I don't see Cal significantly changing the academic policy. And honestly, a 3.0 requirement is already taking kids that are not "perfect academic fits". This is not the world we grew up in. Grades have been highly inflated. 47% of high school grades are A's. A 3.0 is a very low bar.
Kidd is not the example of a student "you can work with" if his reputation at the time as a student was to be believed. Russell White would be. That being said, if Jason Kidd came along today, I'd take him in a heartbeat. I think you make an exception to the rule once in a while for that kind of talent. You make it for a top 20 player, not a top 250 player.
Add to this that Cal is simply not going to spend in the top 20. We should realize this about ourselves by now.
And, importantly, if Cal ever decided to do all these things, a new regime will come in within 5 years to reverse all of it.
Face it. Cal is the Oakland A's. It is a cheap owner. We can either do what all of the high spending owners do, and hope that one day we have a high spending owner (and that is never going to happen) or we can realize we need to make this work for us and do something different. We need a coach that can sell the positives to kids with a 3.0 who aren't looking to get paid because that is our recruiting pool. We need a system that can be successful with those kids. We need to identify local kids early and get them the resources so they can qualify.
As for Decuire, I think you sell him short. We don't know his ceiling. I see no reason that his ceiling is lower than any of the coaches you name. He compares, maybe even favorably, to Monty when Stanford hired him. You describe his ceiling as an occasional victory in the tournament and then you name a coach who has 5 tourney appearances in the last 10 years with 3 first round victories to show for it. You've named 2 coaches with no college experience, 1 of whom has 5 years as an NBA assistant and one stint as a summer league head coach. You have 1 coach that hit a final four run and then has won 2 tournament games in 8 years and has 3 straight losing records in a P-6 conference. And with Oats, his record is very comparable to Decuire without west coast ties let alone Cal ties. And by the way, I like all your candidates and would absolutely consider them, I just don't see where comparatively speaking Decuire is the poster child for giving up out of the group. I think if he hadn't coached as an assistant at Cal, you wouldn't be portraying him that way especially since Oats is so similar as a candidate.
So, my honest opinion is that I support the current academic policy and I would not support at all getting into paying anyone in the recruiting process. I would certainly deal with handlers, etc. as much as I needed to. So that is your answer from me. But I would also say that more importantly Cal is not anytime soon going to change in a sustained manner. Whether someone agrees with that or not, they might as well learn to live with it. They can certainly advocate changing it, but they need to deal with the current reality in the meantime.
