He's kind of unique though, because of his injury.. and that team was BAD. He almost made them worse. But you're also kind of right. He was a big name recruit who went to a big school.
The Dragon had no fire.
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He's kind of unique though, because of his injury.. and that team was BAD. He almost made them worse. But you're also kind of right. He was a big name recruit who went to a big school.
Completely agree he was a great athlete on paper, but he never even made athletic plays in games. I am pretty sure Whitney didn't have one dunk at UK!
Well you’d be wrong about that ... but your overall point isn’t a bad one
I talked to Rhodes about how he started off his UK career so great. Rick told Rhodes this team was Mashburns team to pull back. RR never got it back together again. I felt like the guy telling me this was a straight shooter. Check out Rhodes when he first started off his career.
At some point you have to be a man and tell them to fck off. It's his life and career, not theirs.
If Kahlil has any intelligence at all, he probably should tell them to screw off immediately. Well, if he had any brains, he would have told them to F off when they told him to quit. I don’t know how much more proof he needs to understand just how toxic they are.
The fact that he got suited up for draft day tells me he really bought into the people in his ear. Hopefully he's embarrassed enough to realize how badly he screwed up.
I'm trying to put myself into his position at that same age and I utterly cannot fathom agreeing to leave such a golden opportunity as being a scholarship basketball player at Kentucky. If my dad had tried to make me quit school in that fashion I would have laughed in his face. Of course, he never would have done that, because he's a good dad and not a controlling, megalomaniacal *******.
I'm not gonna disparage KW personally, but to state that quitting like he did, when he did it, calls seriously into question his judgment is being charitable... It would certainly make me extremely leery if I was an NBA GM. KW hasn't demonstrated anything on the basketball court to warrant taking on such a liability.
You obviously have never looked up his stats at UK
he would have probably started over every SF not named MKG in the Cal era
When those were your only advisors for the last 5 years, it is a shame.
kid got bad advice from bad advisors.
was overrated, and should have listened to Cal.
that said. It didn’t work out and I wish the kid well. No need to “hate” a kid so many people “don’t care about”...
hate is not the antithesis of Love...apathy is.
People who don’t care about Whitney’s future, who want to make money off him pushed him before he was ready. The depressing part is often is it is their parents.
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And perhaps you assumed I didn't need to rely on looking up his stats because I actually watched him for three seasons. I also saw a former top 2 recruit need 5 seasons to squeeze into the back end of an NBA first round draft and then fizzle out of the league after a few cameos.
But if stats are your thing, look up his disappearing act in season-ending losses to Michigan in '93, Marquette in '94, and UNC in '95. He was horrible in all three games. That's disappointing for a former top 2 recruit.
And your criteria for gauging Rhodes by small forwards in the Cal era isn't convincing because Cal hasn't landed very many elite 3 men. It's his worst position.
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Spot on man, spot on.
At 18 years old, you wouldn't have been able to tear me away from that opportunity and there is no way anyone would have worked harder than me.
Heck, when I was 18, I was digging ditches, tying rebar, pouring concrete and living in cheap hotels and I was happy to have what I had.
I wish I had KW's size and athleticism. That’s a golden ticket and he had the best opportunity you could get and he pissed it away. I don’t feel bad for him though, he should have seen it through.
i watched him play
he was not Mashburn but he was a good player at UK
he was anything but a bust
Pitino broke his will
as you stated he got drafted in the first round, that does not happen for guys that are a bust in college
how many players have we had that have disappeared in big games
i'll name you two off the top of my head that are having great NBA starts, Booker, Herro
again tell me how this is a bust
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I didn't use the word "bust."
I said he was a historic disappointment. How many top 2 recruits in UK history needed 4 or 5 years to become NBA-worthy, only to fade out after a handful of NBA games cameos?
2-10 against UNC in a season ending loss as a junior. 7 points
0-9 against Marquette in a season ending loss as a sophomore. 0 points
1 point in a season ending loss to Michigan as a freshmen.
When I remember Rhodes, I remember a really talented guy who never really improved at Kentucky. A guy who shot 39% from the field as a junior. I also remember him as a guy who his high school coach - Bob Hurley Sr. - once described this way: "'Rod was Kobe Bryant before anyone heard of Kobe Bryant."
Here is a good article that puts Rodrick's hype in perspective. It's easy for us to forget how hyped he was. Pitino even framed his letter of intent. Rodrick Rhodes Article from 1996
You don't think he was a disappointment and that's fine. I do; but again, I ask you, how many top 2 recruits can you think of that took 5 years to make it to the NBA?
No it wasn't.
The min cal said he wanted him to play at the 4 anyone that knows basketball knew he wasn't great
Yeah i don’t get the fixation on”it took him 4 or 5 years to get to the NBA.” At that time that was still pretty standard. Just 2 years before Rhodes arrived in Lexington, UNLV had 3 lottery picks playing for them as seniors. Rhodes staying wasn’t an anomaly. That was still the norm back then.
Rhodes was a good player, but i think it’s fair to say that he didn’t live up to the hype that preceded him.
Rhodes just couldn't keep his skill and head together in 1 single game. Flashes of ok this guy can get us there. Then all of sudden, damn rod why u playing like u dont even care about bball. I remember it all so well.
It wasn't the norm for elite guys, ranked in the top 3 of their class, who wanted to leave early. Rhodes was in that category. He stated from the get-go that he only wanted to be at UK two years, tops. Read the article. Can you think of very many former top 2 recruits who were urged by their coach to redshirt their senior year? I can't. You make it seem like Rhodes wanted to be at Kentucky a long time, and thus somehow is in that mid-90s Grant Hill category of elite high school guys who want to be in school for four years. That's just not true in his case. At all.
Name some other top 3 guys, even in that era, who it took 4-5 years to make the NBA but who didn't wanted it to take that long (that negates guys like Grant Hill who actually wanted to be in school). Rhodes was more in the Jerry Stackhouse, Jason Kidd, Antoine Walker range of prestige and "get me out of college and into the league, Coach" expectation than he was in the "I love school" category of guys like Allan Houston and Grant Hill.
I wonder what some of you would say if RJ Barrett needed five years at two schools (including a transfer year) to become a cameo player in the NBA. But let's be more fair. What if he needed even three, and then he faded out of the league in less than two seasons? You'd crucify him.
Rhodes didn't want to be here long. But he was. He wanted to be in the NBA long. But he wasn't. We all expected inverse realities for him in both categories and he had the hype to back it up. That = historic disappointment.
You think that stopped the hype on RR? You new here?
ESPN did a special on the kid and we all ate it up here, we all bought into the hype.
Trying to act like RR wasn't on the Dragon hype train all summer long, is hilarious. This is Rupp Rafters man.
that goes right along with one of my points
Pitino broke him, destroyed his confidence by constantly berating him
he shot 44.7 at USC, strangely his FT percentage went way down
Agree. Pitino picked the wrong strings to pull, and Rhodes didn't respond. But what broke Rod was the SEC championship game against Arkansas. Pitino had him badly bent at that point, but that game's what caused the snap.
Whitney came in as #8 player in his class, and I suppose he looked dominant by playing lesser talent. He was a gifted athlete, but he had poor basketball skills. He could have developed, had he stayed, but his father was blinded by money and wanted his payday.