Calipari Q & A: De'Aaron Fox as floor general, coaching a son

This part of the preseason Q & A with UK's coach focuses on De'Aaron Fox as the team's point guard and Brad Calipari.

On De’Aaron Fox stepping into the point guard role:

“I haven’t figured out if he’s going to have the ball as much as Tyler. I haven’t figured it out yet. Now let me say this, as I watch him he’s going to have the ball. But Tyler had it, would you say 97 percent of the time? And he probably needed it 98 percent, 100 percent, yeah. But this is totally different. Last year it was a little bit of Jamal, who we end up finding out, the way we wanted him to play, which is both with and without the ball, ended up benefitting him. So now what’re we doing? De’Aaron with the ball now, he can get to the rim, he’s getting more physical, he can create contact. He hits and then shoots. He’s not flailing. You just watch him in there, his pace of game is too casual at times.

My thing is there are times where he can look as fast as John Wall. John Wall knew that was his number one weapon and he used it all the time. Probably too much. De’Aaron hasn’t figured out that that should be his number one weapon. It’s a weapon he’ll use every once in a while. But it’s really hard to run that fast all the time. The rest of the time ‘I’m so good with the ball I don’t want to run the fast. I’m going to slow down so he catches me so I can – ‘ So there’s stuff. But he’s going to have the ball. He’s going to be in pick and rolls. He’s going to be in playmaking decisions. He can score the ball too. Malik maybe played like Michael (Kidd-Gilchrist) which is if he’s ahead give it to him. If you don’t give it to him you’re coming out. Because he can just, you know, his explosion to go by you, his ability to make runners, he’s getting better at taking hits.

Again I’m telling you this with a summer and a couple of hours a week. The real stuff of playing and then the schedule, which is top heavy for this group being this young.”

Moderator: “All right guys..”

Calipari: “No, I’m going to stay a couple of more minutes. The other thing I have to do I don’t want to do. I really don’t want to be here but just think of what I have to do next. Like, what could be worse than meeting with you? I just want you to think about this, there’s something he’s doing that he hates worse than being around you. Think about it. Plus Jerry (Tipton) isn’t here (laughs).

On if coaching Brad has been what he expected:

“He’s been pretty good. Physically he’s in the gym at night. He’s shooting the ball well. He’s a walk-on that if he doesn’t try to go and play like the rest of these guys, if he doesn’t turn it over and he can make shots, he can play a little bit. Like you can be up 20 and put him in.

But it was funny, this summer he had a friend and we were down on the shore and he was just, you know, being a typical 18-19 year old jerk. So I finally said, ‘Son, come over here. Do you understand that you have to make me like you? You know that? This stuff has just changed. You do understand that if I don’t like you, like I don’t want you in practice, I don’t want you around me. You have to think how I make this man like me?’

If I don’t want you around, you’re not around. I’m just like get out of here. Beat it.

On Brad possibly being a coach one day and if he’s talked about that:

“He told me that for the first time, he’s not the most talkative kid. He’s more like his mother that way. He’s a little bit more quiet. But he said ‘I think I want to get into coaching.’ I said well then you’re doing the right thing. I’ll get you around Joel and I’ll get you around some of the video stuff. Kenny will be working you out and the other coaches. You’ll see that side of it. You have four years to really study what we do here. I’ve helped a lot of guys into coaching if that’s what they want to do. Players who have played for me, assistant coaches that have worked for me. I mean, it’s what I do here. So good for him. My thing to him, if you really want to play you probably want to go to Division II or a lower Division I.

But he had a reason why he wanted to be here. I said it’s a hard job and his mother thinks he’s playing. She’s out of her mind (laughs). She’s like ‘You’re playing him, I’m telling you you’re gonna play him.’ I just said ‘OK, what’re we having for dinner?’”

On if this team reminds him of previous teams:

“No. I’m excited about coaching them. It’s funny. My wife had them and said every year the kids have gotten better. They’re great kids. She said this group – and Isaac said to me – last year coach, the team we had, the way we got along was unbelievable. I’ve never played on a team like that. Now this year’s team is the same, maybe even closer. What our guys don’t understand until they leave us is it’s not usually like that. It’s usually a couple of guys or this and that and you just don’t, we’ve been fortunate. Being at Kentucky is a different deal. We don’t get everybody we recruit. There are kids who act like Kentucky was one of the schools when I decided.. well I haven’t talked to that kid in two months. Us? No.

I’ve had kids call me and ask why I haven’t talked to them. Why haven’t I talked to you? You know where you’re going to school. You just want us involved. Just go where you’re going. I leave this week and it’s going to be a grueling six or seven days. But after those seven days we’ll have a good idea of where we are. And we’re not recruiting that many guys. Seven, eight, nine guys maybe. One kid texted me and asked if it was OK if he put (UK) in his final five. Because he knows that I haven’t talked to him in two months and he knows that he didn’t want to put it out there and then us come out – he didn’t want to be embarrassed. I said you’re fine. I’m not going to come out there and hurt these kids.

But the reality of it is we’re not recruiting every kid out there. But the ones that need to come here come here. Some other kids look at this and don’t want all of this or it’s too much. Or they’re convinced, do you really want to be a part of all that? Do you really want to score? Why would you want to score 11 points there when you could score 20 here. You’re 18. Or you’re there family and you think 20 points is what’s going to get you a better draft pick than 11. You should probably talk to Karl or Anthony or one of those guys. But you can believe that. But it’s going to be a grueling – I’m going to be from one coast to the other. When we get home we’re going to have some kids on campus.”