John Calipari drops by The Dan Patrick Show to discuss his process of preparing for games, Zion Williamson, UCLA offering him a contract and Kentucky giving him a lifetime contract.
Patrick asks Calipari what he thinks Nike is going to offer Zion:
Do you remember when Nike did what they did with Tiger Woods? And everybody was up in arms, they couldn't believe it! And they got a deal. They got a DEAL. I'll be honest; we recruited Zion. I probably missed him a little bit. I know he was gonna be good. I didn't know he was gonna be THIS GOOD. I know he could dominate but not like he's done. When I walked off the court when we played against him, I said, "I missed on another one!"
Patrick asks Calipari about the lifetime deal wondering if the contract is until he dies:
No, I don't have a deal until I die. There have been people that have said this about this thing and haven't even read it. What the University did months ago, their thing was, they wanted me to finish my career there, so they asked me what that would look like. I couldn't say at the moment. They asked me if it would look like THIS (Calipari puts his hands out). THE MEETING TOOK 15 MINUTES! I said 'Yeah, that would be good.' The reality of it is, it's not until I die, It's not that I'm gonna be in a walker trying to coach, it's, you finish your career here, and that was it.
Calipari continues:
My leverage is what I've done at each school. It's not that THIS school called or THAT program called or THAT NBA team...that's not my leverage. My leverage is what I've done at the program. And I DO talk to people, and the reason I talk to people is that I have relationships with most of them and if it's an NBA team, I'm gonna probally call that guy to pick some of my players. It was blown up, and it came out, so we had to respond to it. The university has been good to me. Hopefully, I've done something good there that led them to say, 'we want you to finish your career here' and it's been a pretty good run.
Paulie asks Calipari if UCLA offered him a contract to which Calipari responds with NO. Patrick says that there are numbers attached to this UCLA offer, however. Calipari says:
If there're numbers; they're NOT true.