so no one starting a Perry Ellis Thread? guess I will
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@jaybate-1.0 Saying that it’s not the shoes Mars that makes a winner. When there is a higher ratio of Nike schools out there the odds are they will win more. It’s just like Windows vs Mac. There are a lot more windows users out there hence why more hackers and aware is intended for windows computers and not Macs.
Spin the numbers how ever you like but I don’t buy it as to shoe companies having the pull to get wins, now if Vegas wants you to win or lose, that I believe can happen. Just ask UNLV’s 1991 team.
Weren’t they Nike? Weren’t they a cult favorite?
Sure Nike threw more money at Duke, and when a company does that what school, especially a private school wouldn’t jump at the chance to have more income? Coaches get money from Nike and Adidas when they sign on at a school that pushes their base contracts up.
Conspiracy theories are great for Grisham Novels, but in the reality of life not so much.
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I’ve been wondering that.
Plus… if Perry is to stay at Kansas next year and do the right thing (play minutes at the 3) then he’ll really be pushed to intensify his game further. It is what he needs to do. That means more hard drives to the hole and finishes. I think he would like to draw at least one decent pay day before he gets hurt.
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Actually, regarding Pitino, the portion I referred to is not at all ripped out of context. What matters to me in this instance and what is relevant about what he said in this instance is that Rick Pitino thought that the NCAA thought that whatever was going on was okay and so he concluded it was okay too. But I would be glad for you to paste in the entirety of his comments to flesh it out, if you think it would clarify the part about him concluding that if the NCAA thought it was okay that he did too.
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@jaybate-1.0 There are no facts how shoe co’s determine the outcome. That is my point.
Saying that what ever shoe a kid wears in college can affect his draft pick is utterly ridiculous. It didn’t factor into an injured Embiid being picked last year.
Again spinning numbers to get them to say what you want is easy, but the reality of it is players get drafted on potential anymore especially OAD’s. Guys who stay are picked by more of what they have accomplished.
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Spinning the numbers implies I am trying to deceive you. Why would I want to deceive you? Quite to the contrary, I am trying to understand what is going on and admit freely that I don’t yet. Should I infer that you are spinning the numbers precisely because you are accusing me of doing something I have no reason, or intention, to do? I don’t think so. I think this is a difficult and sensitive topic for folks to think about and discuss, because it suggests possible systemic unfairness being involved in a game we love. But systemic unfairness is not necessarily illegal.
Regarding the appearance of shaping outcomes and/or spreads of games, I am assuming as a layman that whatever is going on is probably legal, or it would have already been addressed by authorities.
And to reiterate I am not at all convinced the ShoeCoes would be the ones to shape the outcomes of games, if they were being shaped in some legal way, or even in some illegal way. I am a layman and do not know about the illegal ways with sufficient expertise to contribute much knowledgeable on that count.
All I can say with some confidence is that whatever is creating the appearance of outcomes and/or spreads being shaped, it is not yet transparent and as a layman I have no reason yet to suspect illegality.
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This just in…
Perry Ellis has traded in his high tops for a pair of skates. He’ll be jumping over to the Islanders next season as a right wing.
Doubtful he will ever be called a “p” by my wife again!
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I think he will have to intensify his game further no matter what. He had maybe 5-6 games last year that were NBA worthy. I think a Senior year would really force that intensity on him more consistently. He clearly has to show more perimeter based skills both offensively and defensively. I’m certainly not speculating that the risk of injury has forced the NBA convo further ahead but anything is possible. He knows his position to scouts now and must make the best decision for himself and hopefully for KU.
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@JayHawkFanToo You got that right FanToo! This Climate Change is the biggest lie and deception, and people are falling for it! Once scientists’ research supported the COW MILK over MOM’s MILK to babies only to recant a decade later that showed MOTHER’s MILK is beneficial to babies because it provides immediate immune plus much more. And these same Scientists claim to know less than 10% of the bottom of the ocean that holds 95%+ of earth’s water, and these bozo idiots claim to know about the climate? Are you kidding me? They have yet to discover all the creatures on earth, let alone how water/ocean pressure, wind, etc work? How arrogant or ignorant are these claimed academics? Can you imagine our taxes paying for such bogus research when common sense will tell you why feed animal’s milk to a baby when mother produces it? Uneducated or educated, people stopped using their brain, and listening too much of media that is full of s—! Sorry to go off here, but your comment hit a nerve
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It must be the off season.
Thanks for giving me the chance to defend myself from things I don’t claim.
Its good to play defense. Keeps one nimble.
You appear to be spinning my spinning numbers. Are you?
Next.
I don’t know if shoe brand lean impacts how players are drafted. If you want me to draft a hypothesis about it, I guess I could, but I have not really felt a hypothesis was necessarily in order yet. I can imagine circumstances where it might, but I can imagine circumstances where it might not. I wouldn’t see anything wrong with it if shoe brand lean were a factor in drafting players, would you?
That causes me to interrupt and ask you why would it be a bad thing if ShoeCo brand lean were one of the factors considered in drafting players? I don’t see what would be wrong with it. It would be like picking a UNC student over a UC Berkeley student for a job in Chapel Hill, because you had better relations with and more respect for and did more business with UNC folks than UC Berkeley folks in Piedmont region of North Carolina. But I digress.
Wiggins situation in Cleveland is one where I could imagine that it might have played a factor in being drafted, if they were in negotiations with Lebron as the draft occurred, but I don’t ever recall saying that it did play a factor.
On the hand, I do recall wondering about if Wigs shoe lean was perhaps a part of the reason Wigs was traded out of Cleveland AFTER Lebron signed with Cleveland. But that is not quite what you appear to be suggesting about me.
Oh,well while I am playing defense, how about I play a little pre-emptive defense and defend myself from something you haven’t even inaccurately accused me of…yet…at least I don’t recall you have.
I want to play this kind of defense for awhile, because at least it is about something that interests me.
Wiggins reputedly was once a Nike lean in high school and reputedly the greatest prospect since Lebron James, then Wigs in something of a surprise move went to an adidas school with a coach contracted with adidas. He was drafted next by Cleveland. He was drafted the Number one player in the draft. Cleveland then signed premier Nike endorser, Lebron James. Cleveland then traded the Number one pick in the draft and the reputed greatest prospect since Lebron, and perhaps by then an adidas endorser, to Minnesota for a center who was never considered the greatest prospect since Lebron to my recollection, but who had played well for a franchise that had not been very successful, as far as I recall. Hmmm. In turn, the trade did not work out very well for Cleveland. Hmmm. And while Wigs has played well in Minnesota, It would appear not to have helped Wig’s career much as an endorser to play in a small midwestern market, like Minneapolis, as opposed to having played with Lebron in Cleveland, a larger market team in the Eastern Time Zone. Do you see why one might wonder? Not be sure. Not be categorical. But wonder? Maybe even hypothesize? But not claim it as a fact, or a certainty.
Is there anything else that I do not recall saying that you might like inaccurately to imply I said that I might for your and my edification and exercise defend myself against?
P.S.: I recall you are in a lot of chronic pain and I sincerely hope you have found some effective assistance with it. I know chronic pain is a terrible burden. Rock Chalk and thanks for responding to my posts even though we differ a bit on things.
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@JayHawkFanToo This political crap is getting out of hand. If you want to have people appreciate this drivel go to redstate or some other place occupied by dullards. It is people like you who devalue a degree from the University of Kansas.
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I guess there could be 2 schools of thought from Perry’s perspective. 1. If he is marginal 1st round now he will be next year also and why risk injury? 2. Stay another year and try to improve your standing. I think there is way more upside in #2 than downside.
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I would quite shocked if Perry didn’t return.
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@jaybate-1.0 Your 148/82 ratio looks better than it really is. In shoes there is one Michael Jordan and then everyone else. I saw recently that Nike has close to a 85% marketshare and most of that is the Jordan brand. There is no way that Adidias will ever catch Nike. I just hope that the recruits keep coming anyway.
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I have a feeling you are right, but I was trying to play take what I was given. Thanks for weighing in.
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@jaybate-1.0 I don’t like being on the wrong side of the fence. The wad of Adidas cash and more than adequate recruits that are coming in makes it seem better.
Funny thing is I don’t remember feeling like KU had a recruiting advantage when it was a Nike school. It does seem like it could be that way now, but I’m not 100%
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I think you are right. Perry is a smart young man. He knows what he is up against and he’ll come back and show more intensity on a consistent basis, not only because it will help his draft stock but also because he is a senior and he knows what the role is of a senior… to lead the herd.
If he stays healthy I think we are in for a wild ride this coming year with Perry. It will be the Perry we always expected… just like what we experienced out of Tyshawn Taylor his senior year. That guy really kicked some butt!
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Bring on Under Armour. Better labor practices than any of the other big names. Better quality stuff too than Nike or Adidas.
Hopefully KU being an adidas school weeds out the stupid kids who think brands matter. (really, we’re really only talking about Michael Jordan here building the Nike brand. The rest are coat tail hangers.) It obviously doesn’t catch all the prima donnas, but I’m OK if the majority of “ME” guys only want to play in Nikes. Whatever. Go to Texas or KY for a year or two. It does sicken me to see schools actually farm their entire sports branding out to Nike Design. (No conflict of interest there?)
On the other hand, Adidas apparel designers SUCK. I’m almost thankful that Wisconsin lost in the championship because those F-ing hideous badger bagger stripe uni’s would have been immortalized in Wisconsin’s athletics shrine for the next 100 years.
Is Puma still around? Converse? Saucony? Sketchers. Keen? Merrill? New Balance? Keds? Bueller? Bueller?..
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Oh yeah… also, I think Perry will stay another year and tear up the Big 12!
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@drgnslayr slayr, you gotta be growing sleepy, what with this late night blending of Ellis with Tyshawn in the same paragraph! Jeesh, I spent some 3 1/4 years grimacing just about every time TT chalked up another blunder. Though Perry has somewhat disappeared from a few contests, his progress for the most part has been regularly upward from Day One. I think I know what you are driving at, the senior year shining moments, but surely you can dredge up a better metaphor!
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This political crap is getting out of hand. If you want to have people appreciate this drivel go to redstate or some other place occupied by dullards. It is people like you who devalue a degree from the University of Kansas.
As a matter of fact, I do live in a red state, BY CHOICE, so I don’t have to go to one. Nice of you to call us, Kansans, dullards; it makes me wonder how you ever survived in Lawrence, Kansas surrounded by us, dullards.
I take it that your entire rather offensive comment was in relation to my casual, one sentence about Global Warming? If that is the case and you feel so strongly about it, I will be happy to debate the subject with you in a forum of your choice, although this has been debated at nauseaum and real scientists - and by this I mean the ones that have no problem making their source, data and methods available for peer review and not the ones that spout opinions as fact and refuse to make available the information used to reach their conclusions or collude on how to alter data to justify their conclusions - have proved beyond a doubt the gigantic scam that Global Warming is. On the other hand why bother, it seems like you have your mind made up and frankly, I have no desire to change it plus…how likely is it that a dullard like me would have any chance against a smart East/West Coast savant such as yourself?
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A couple of points. Cleveland needed a big name, talented “big” since Varejao was doubtful and Love (arguably a top 10 NBA player) was by far the best available big; in the other hand, the Cavs had several wing players like Wiggins including LeBron himself, so it was really a no brainer to trade an unknown commodity like Wiggins for a known performer like Love. I have not heard anyone say that the trade was shoeco driven; maybe you can cite your source for that assertion.
Also, you said:
"And while Wigs has played well in Minnesota, It would appear not to have helped Wig’s career much as an endorser to play in a small midwestern market, like Minneapolis, as opposed to having played with Lebron in Cleveland, a larger market team in the Eastern Time Zone."
Again, I am not sure where you get your numbers but the Minneapolis/St. Paul market where Wiggins plays is almost 50% larger than the Cleveland/Akron market and it has a lot less competition form other regional sports teams. In fact, Wiggins went from the smaller Cleveland market to the much larger Minneapolis market.
Also, you started with Nike having 77% of the NBA players but the numbers indicate that there are 127 out of roughly 420-450 players or a tad under 30% (Adidas 82 players is roughly 20%); this is a big discrepancy that pretty much negates your conclusion of a Nike dominated NBA, wouldn’t you agree? I am curious as to where you get your 77% and 23% numbers, mine come from Wikipedia that the shoecos would certainly correct if they are wrong…they might not be exact numbers but at least there are numbers with a source cited and I have not seen anything that would lead me to believe they are incorrect.
We may or may not agree on the numbers and conclusions but it has been an interesting and enlightening discussion and I believe we all now have at least a little more information on the subject than before. This is always a good thing…
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Is this shoe thing really a …THING?
I thought you guys have been feeding us a line of crap all this time. Does anybody really care about stupid brand of SHOE they wear? REALLY???
In my closet this morning I see… Adidas, Reebok, Asic, Converse, Columbia boots, Nocona boots, Dockers, Sketchers, Sperry Topsiders and some K-mart flip flops.
Any kid that picks a college based on his flippin shoes - I DON’T WANT!
REALLY?? This is a THING???
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@wissoxfan83 ( i left the 9" heels off that list…hehe )
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@nuleafjhawk said:
Is this shoe thing really a …THING?
Unfortunately, brand loyalty is a thing - a real thing and it is, in my opinion, what makes the shoe sponsorship of teams so sinister at their core. I’d be willing to bet that of all the accoutrements that make up an athletic uniform the shoes are the things that kids (and anyone for that matter) would be least willing to compromise.
I don’t think it’s necessarily a hipness thing or cache sort of thing (though I’m sure there is a component to that) so much as a comfort thing. Case in point: my dad. In his younger days, my dad was an avid runner. He would only wear New Balance brand shoes as they were the only brand he found that had a wide enough toe. I can’t tell you how many times he lost the big toenail on either foot before discovering New Balance. From that point on, he refused to buy any other type of running shoe, understandably so.
My point is simply that there are reasons people buy Pepsi instead of Coke; why people are Mac devotees instead of Windows users; why people drive a Ford instead of a Chevy. It’s a personal choice and it’s awfully difficult to sway those choices once an allegiance has been developed. It’s why advertisers spend such an inordinate amount of money trying to influence us.
Interestingly, the reasons for brand loyalty are not always completely rational. If Wade Boggs taught me anything about baseball, it’s that superstition also plays a huge part in sports. If memory serves, he ate chicken before every game because of a particularly successful game early in his career after such a meal. If a kid has worn Nike shoes his whole life and has experienced success, he may not want to jeopardize that success by changing any part of his routine, including what shoes he wears. The old Spike Lee/Mars Blackmon Nike ads spoke to this with the “Is it the shoes?” refrain.
I’m not saying it’s right or that I like the shoe monopolies, but there is definitely a “thing” there. Maybe the solution is to get Pepsi or Coke to sponsor college athletics and let the kids wear whatever shoes they are comfortable wearing. Then, perhaps, we would see fewer college choices being dictated by footwear and more by things that most of us would look for in a school: coaches, academics, atmosphere, fan base, etc. Of course, instead of the hat ceremony at press conferences, we would then be subject to the Pepsi challenge. I think I could live with that.
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@tis4tim Good points. Plus, you reminded me I have two pair of New Balance in a closet in the other room.
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“Is this shoe thing really a …THING?”
The shoe thing is beyond a real thing… I’ve spent some time in the hood, and I still have some “hoodies” (bros from the hood).
“Uniform” is king in the hood. Clothes… shoes… they identify you with a group, and it gives you a huge part of your identity. Kids are killing other kids for their shoes, or just to eliminate their competing status.
Guess what these kids do when they get a hold of some cash? They buy shoes. I can tell you all some insane stories, very hard to believe, but true. Here is an example. A kid from the hood sold drugs and took his profits and invested in shoes. He lived with his mom, and suddenly they were homeless. He wanted to stay with his mom to protect her, but he had to worry about his investment… his shoes. So he paid a guy “rent” to live in his van with his shoes. And he never leaves his “vault” without having another bro stay there to guard his shoes.
Is this shoe thing real? Now you get a taste of why Nike and Adidas drop “Bs” (billions of dollars) on marketing. To obtain status. This is all about status… and it is all KING in the hood!
You can always tell which NBA players come from the hood. When they cash that first check, before they buy their momma a house, or drop some dough on their entourage… they buy shoes. They’ve had their eye on some collectables way before making it to the league. And when they buy a house, the most important part of the house is their closet to hold their shoes… hundreds of pairs.
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@drgnslayr WOW. I always knew I was naive, but I had no idea how flippin far in the sand my head was buried.
I still think it’s stupid. It’s actually beyond that, buy I can’t think of a proper word to describe it. " Mizzoulish " ??
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@wissoxfan83 Imelda? I dont get it.
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@nuleafjhawk I dunno Nuleaf, this is @jaybate-1.0 's theory. It seems to hold credence based on the fact that Nike is a billion dollar industry giant and we all should know what follows money? Power. And what follows power? Corruption!!! Its that whole absolute power/corruption verse we’ve heard time and again. I think its very valid.
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@JayHawkFanToo You do know that redstate is a website, don’t you? A causal one sentence about global warning? You had a similar post on another topic at about the same time. I don’t really care what your political opinions are. They are yours. This is not the place to air them.
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There was a dictator in the Philippines back in the 1980’s Fernando ? Marcos. His wife was infamous for owning like 8000 pairs of shoes. I was referring to that.
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@wissoxfan83 I’m working on that.
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Although I’d probably count as a dullard in your book too, I agree this isn’t the place to bring politics into things. The board will never be the same if we do.
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If you read all my posts from the time I joined this forum right after it started, you will see that I have mentioned on many occasions that politics should not be discussed, and this Forum should be strictly sports; more specifically KU Sports. In fact, and based on my complaining, @jaybate-1.0 at one point suggested adding “999” or something along those lines to threads not related to KU basketball.
I did not make a political point; my comment was in relation to the topic (being discussed at the time) of altering figures to fit different agendas and, in my humble opinion, global warming is a good example of that. I personally (as an engineer/scientist) do not see it as political issue, although I has been used in that context, but as an issue of professional and scientific integrity and my post was solely in that context. You will note that I indicated my willingness to discuss the subject it in a different forum (of your choice).
Again, I would respectfully suggest that you review my history on the subject before you pass judgement on me.
P.S. I do know what redstate.com is and I do not subscribe to it or any other publication that places labels. I get my news from several sources and then I form my own opinion.
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“I still think it’s stupid. It’s actually beyond that, buy I can’t think of a proper word to describe it. " Mizzoulish " ??”
Hood culture is a culture. It derives from many things. The more you know about it, the more it exposes why things are the way they are. All cultures have an organic process of how they got to be the way they are. There is an explanation for all of it.
We are all enriched by cultures all over the world, and hood culture has exposed many hardships from the struggle… but it has also given us all many great gifts, too. Music, dance, sports, art, food, written word, perspective… we have all been enriched by catching a taste from those who have shared their world with us.
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Hypothesis.
It just lets the facts attract around it and support it , or refute it. Nothing more. Nothing less.
What concerns me most is that I have seen no alternative hypotheses attracting more facts that support them. Hypotheses are supposed to include facts, not exclude them. Hypotheses that do not include remarks by Rick Pitino or exclude other facts and observations seem not inclusive enough. And I am for including all remarks by rick Pitino and others. Hypotheses are supposed to include the facts and be supported by the facts as they emerge. I am happy to consider other hypotheses that include the facts and fit the facts as they emerge. Seeking verified explanation is fun.
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Your generosity of spirit is commendable, but I would argue that we were not enriched by Nazi Culture and certain other extremist forms of virulent culture. Culture and cultural diversity are our friend, but even they should be held accountable. Persons raped and murdered and addicted to drugs by gang bangers, and organized crime, are not enriched by gang culture, or The culture of organized crime.
Otherwise, I agree with you we can enriched by good faith interaction with all forms of human culture.
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I finally found it. Here is the entire transcript of Pitino’s comments on the subject; I am going to guess that they can be interpreted in many different since they are ambiguous enough…although I find it hard to believe that he just found out about the shoe company’s influence.
Anything in particular on your list?
I think we need to deal with the … What I personally don’t like, and I’ve seen it over the past five years, I don’t like – I can’t recuirt a kid because he wears Nike in the AAU circuit. I mean that’s – I’ve never heard of such a thing, and it’s happening in our world. Or, he’s on the Adidas circuit so the Nike schools don’t want to recruit him. I never thought that shoes would be the reason you wouldn’t recruit players. It’s a factor. I think we need to deal with that. We need to get the shoe companies out of the lives of young athletes. We need to get it back to where parents and coaches have more of a say than peripheral people. That’s easier said than done. I don’t know how to do that. That’s like trying to get the runners out of the game. We try our best to do that, but I don’t know how to do that.
Do you think you’re at a disadvantage not being a Nike school?
I think our pool shrinks. Our pool shrinks. But, that being said, in the last few years we’re having some of the best recruiting classes that we’ve had in the last 13. It almost makes us – I realized looking back on it how much time and effort I’ve wasted because I wouldn’t believe what I just said.
Are there players who specifically said they can’t come play for you because you’re not …
No, they don’t say they can’t come, but the outside influences from the shoe companies and the AAU coaches know that if that kid goes to an Adidas school, he may not get renewed by Nike. It’s the outside influence. It’s not actually the kid who cares. But you know, if you guys are influential in a young person’s life and you said, ‘boy, you should really go to Kentucky, they’re a Nike school.’ He doesn’t have to say a Nike school, he just has to say Kentucky. Everybody’s in that court because you’re all working for that shoe company. I think that’s a bigger problem than whether you guarantee scholarships, but nobody wants to talk about that. Why nobody wants to talk about that is because it’s money related. Any time it’s money related, schools – University of Louisville makes a lot of money through Adidas, so you don’t really … I think it needs to be cleaned up.
I’ve always wished the NCAA would do it – I’ve written letters about it – I wish the NCAA would run the camps in the summertime so then everybody gets explained to them all the NCAA rules – what you can do, what you can’t do – by the NCAA. So they run the camps and they tell us when to go in and watch and they legislate all of that. That would be a great way to spend all that money, that war chest that they have. I don’t think they want to do that.
And by the way, I’m not speaking about a personal situation that just happened to us. That really wasn’t the case, believe it or not. I’m talking about, in the last five years, I’ve seen a tremendous change on this. Believe me, it’s a very competitive thing by these shoe companies to get players. I mean they’re going out and recruiting like us in the summertime. ‘Let’s get this kid in EYBL and this kid in Adidas Nation,’ and they’re competing like us for recruits. It’s very tough to address because our pockets are lined with their money.
Do you think there’s a relationship between their money and high school players?
I think the high school players are all getting shoes and they’re all getting uniforms to play in the AAU circuit. I don’t think there’s anything illegal, but they’re all getting shoes and apparel and the AAU programs are getting taken care of by the shoe companies. We all know that. It’s out in the open. Some of these AAU programs get paid a lot of money to run their program. There are the elite programs, and some of them are very good, very good. But what I’ve learned is, if I go in and there’s a Nike program and they’re getting paid a grand sum of money, Louisville’s not going to come in and recruit them. It doesn’t make sense because they might get that grand sum of money down the road if they don’t go to those schools. Same thing with Adidas. If they’re an Adidas school, the Nike …
I just learned this. I never believed it until the last couple of years. That’s a problem that needs more addressing, not to go off on this tangent, but that’s a problem that’s really prevalent in basketball.
Do you think there are a lot of other coaches who feel the same way?
I’m sure the Nike coaches don’t feel that way (laughs). Because they’re winning the battle.
**Why have you been successful (recruiting) despite that advantage? ** It took me a long time to realize who I’m going after and we’ve finally done a good job with that.
So you stay away from Nike kids?
No, not stay away, we just know the programs that are really influenced – the really marquee programs – that are influenced by them. It’s not just Nike. Under Armour’s a big player in this now. Under Armour’s become the second-largest (apparel) company in the United States, right? They’re competing and competing hard. I wish it wasn’t there. I think it’s going to be there a long, long time, as long as we’re getting paid by those schools.
If that’s the case, then how do you adjust long-term? Do you recommend going to Nike?
No, no. I don’t think that’s the answer. The answer for us is to find out what athlete is involved in which AAU program. How loyal is he to that AAU program? What outside influences in that program push him and direct him toward Nike schools. So we have to do our homework and be very diligent. Obviously the last two years, we’ve been very diligent because we’ve had great success.
Before the new Adidas deal, was that something you addressed with Tom or anybody in the athletic department?
I have my own choices to make for which shoe company. I’m sort of separate from the university in that regard, though we’re sort of tied in together. I’m very comfortable where we are with Adidas because we’re having great success. If I didn’t feel we were having great success, I would recommend that we go with Under Armour or go with Nike, whoever it may be. It was my fault, not the shoe company or the university, that I didn’t do a good enough job finding out and researching how big certain factors are with certain people. It’s nobody’s fault but my own.
Is there a concern, being one of the higher-profile programs, that whatever comes that way that you’re connected with them vs. Nike?
As long as you do your homework, you’re fine. I didn’t do my homework. The shoe companies aren’t to blame. They’re playing the ultimate competitive game. Who can be No. 1? Right now, Nike’s No. 1. Under Armour’s making a push. They’re competing like we’re competing. We’ve got to make sure that we know that it doesn’t matter to the kids. Those kids are the kids we want to go after.
FWIW, this is what Rob Dauster of College Basketball talk on NBC had to say:
I have a couple thoughts on this:
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There’s zero chance that I believe that Rick Pitino found out about shoe company influence in the last five years. Zero.
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I think the influence that these shoes companies is a bit overblown. Andrew Wiggins, the prospect with the most marketability that has come through high school ranks since LeBron and Kevin Durant, was a Nike kid all through high school. He went to Kansas, an Adidas school. In this year’s recruiting class for Kansas includes Cliff Alexander and Kelly Oubre, both of who were Nike kids and are two of the best pro prospects in the Class of 2014. Duke just earned a commitment from Chase Jeter, who played his AAU ball with the same Adidas program that produced Shabazz Muhammad.
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That said, I believe that what Pitino is saying about shoe companies is precisely what happened with Blakeney. The kid picked an Adidas school, the people around him — those that make their money from the swoosh — were not happy about it, Blakeney decommits. It’s not a pretty situation, but I’m not sure it’s the epidemic Pitino makes it out to be.
Lots of “food for thought” for the thought foodies…:)
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Quite a read.
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@wissoxfan83 Dang, thats a lot of shoes.
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Remember this was a thread about Perry Ellis and the arguments for his leaving/staying?? Yikes !
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This link has most everything you need to know about Perry staying or leaving.
One question, if Perry leaves, does KU become a better option for some of the top players since it frees 30+ minutes per game for the 3/4 position?
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“Persons raped and murdered and addicted to drugs by gang bangers, and organized crime, are not enriched by gang culture, or The culture of organized crime.”
I couldn’t agree more. Everyone has to be held accountable, especially when it comes to crime. The criminal aspect of the hood is the hardship aspect I mentioned. No one knows more about being victimized than those who live in those neighborhoods. It is part of the overall situation that actually entices more people to become criminal, like after everything they ever worked to own is gone and they are at a very raw survival moment in their lives. I’m dealing with a kid right now who lives with his grandma and when she was hospitalized everything from their unit was stolen. They didn’t even have a cup to drink from. I’m busy finding as much work for this kid as I can because they have to survive, and if he can’t get it by finding work, he’ll have to get it in another way. Most of us have options even in our lowest moments, but not everyone is blessed with options, often for many reasons, it isn’t just an issue of race.
The largest hurdle in the hood is education. Kids who take on the challenge and develop their minds will end up having an opportunity to leave the hood, or stay and fight to improve it. Good decision-making is the biggest reason why people remain down.
So when the NCAA pulled the plug on Cliff it hit home with me. Part of it was that it hurt his chances to make a living at basketball… another side of it was he just lost his free-ride to an education.
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Thank you very much for posting this. It was because of the portion of this you directed me to previously that I evolved my hypothesis into the ShoeCo-agent complex and the entirety of this supports having done so, plus raises the issue if there were another piece to add to the ShoeCo-agency complex. Excellent virtual shoe leAther on your. Thanks again!!
P.S.: what I am trying to say here is that this evidences the existence of a shoe co-agency complex and that it exerts influence to significant but as yet not transparent degree. Further, this complex does not seem to explain on it’s own the entirety of the apparent phenomena of biased officiating and seeding and anomalous talent stacking. Therefore, one infers another element of the complex may be waiting to be found and so far everything appears to be legal is the hypothesis has assumed.
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Since in principal the purpose of a university is to educate persons and develop them for society, it seems to me, as a layman, questionable whether the NCAA, the University, and the athletic department, fulfilled their function to Cliff Alexander, if he committed no crime and if he did not take out a loan. It appears at the very least not fair
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It seems very unfair to Cliff. None of us know his family dynamics. We can only speculate if he “should have known better.” Or… did he know better? Did she know better?
It feels like Kansas didn’t hold up their end, but we can only speculate. I have a hard time Kansas athletics hasn’t thought of this before and has a policy for preventing as much as possible. I’m not going to point a finger at anyone, only worth mentioning that the system, somewhere, is broken. Cliff shouldn’t be stuck out in the cold.
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@drgnslayr wonder if we will ever know? What a pain for all to live w/!
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@drgnslayr I am going back to what I’ve posted before. My daughter plays club ball AAU tourneys and even at BIG tourneys in middle school she had to watch a NCAA rules video. Now there is no real WNBA money or shoe money here for women but the rules are the same for men . Now we go to high school tourneys and these videos are required at most every tourney, including parents signing documents they know the rules.
So as Bill Self states it is not against the rules to talk to an agent. But extra benefits ARE illegal and what ever scumbag got involved with Cliff/or his family deserves to have a court order stating he can NEVER have contact with an amateur athlete again.
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@jaybate-1.0 So you’re saying its an hypothesis?
