Nets cut Calipari; now he cuts down nets
NEWARK
This is a healthy trip for Kentucky's John Calipari, the highest paid and one of the highest profile college coaches in the country. Everywhere he goes, Calipari is a celebrity, hero and often a villain. New Jersey is different, though. Only here does he get to take a deep breath and smell the tart whiff of failure.
This is the one place where Calipari actually whiffed as a coach. In two-plus seasons with the Nets, he had some success, but not enough to keep him from being fired -- in humiliating fashion. "It was tough dragging my luggage up the arena [steps] in Miami to the waiting car, to the guillotine," he said Thursday after practice for his team's Sweet 16 NCAA Tournament game Friday night against top-ranked Ohio State.
He will work in the Prudential Center arena that is now the nice but temporary home for the Nets, who are heading to Brooklyn because they never caught on at the Meadowlands under Calipari (or anyone else).
In a way, Calipari and the Nets were a perfect match. The coach (Massachusetts, Memphis, Nets, Kentucky and various other stops as an assistant) and the team (Teaneck, Commack, West Hempstead, Uniondale, Piscataway, East Rutherford, Newark) both seem perpetually restless. And as hard as they try, neither ever quite reaches the top of the hill.
In another way, the former coach (1996-1999) and the NBA team are wildly different. Unlike the star-crossed Nets, Calipari always seems to land on his feet (he has an eight-year, $31.7-million contract).
So he could view this trip as vindication, but instead he sees it as a roll down Memory Lane for a slice of humble pie. "My wife and I will probably take a nostalgic drive up to Franklin Lakes, see the old house," he said. "My son was born here. We have good memories.
"It was the best experience. There are two things: One, I'm a better coach to better prepare these young people, which is what my job is. Two, it's a humbling thing when you walk in, everything is the next step up and they say, 'We don't want you here. Just beat it. You're out. You can't do this job.' So there's some self-reflection of, 'Where did this go south? What do I need to do to improve?' "
He spoke of friendships with Newark philanthropist Ray Chambers and Nets CEO Brett Yormark. Calipari shared a big hug and long conversation at courtside with Devils president Lou Lamoriello, who used to run the Nets, too.
No hard feelings about being bounced one year after helping the Nets to a huge turnaround and second-place finish. "Then all of a sudden you have the lockout, you have a couple injuries . . . And I'm not doing a good job of coaching them. Then pfft, pfft, pfft. Done," he said.
Calipari's Nets could have been a contender had management listened to him in 1996 and drafted a high school kid named Kobe Bryant. "Everybody knows I was talked out of that," he said, recalling Bryant's eye-popping tryouts at Fairleigh Dickinson. He remembered the counterarguments from his bosses: "You can't take a high school player. This is your first draft pick, you don't even know what the hell you're doing. How can you take a high school player?"
They didn't. They picked Kerry Kittles. "Look, it all played out for everybody. I enjoyed coaching Kerry Kittles," Calipari said, and referring to Bryant, added, "Would the kid have stayed in New Jersey?"
Things have played out fine for the coach who sent five first-round picks to the NBA last year, including the No. 1 overall, John Wall, whom the Nets desperately wanted. But they lost the lottery. This time, it wasn't Calipari's problem.
