It was rumored last summer that the Cleveland Cavaliers were offering Kentucky coach John Calipari a 10-year/$80 million deal to coach and be the president of the team. However, we all know what happened with Calipari coming back to Kentucky and signing a new seven-year deal worth $52.5 million.
"The only thing that was ever serious was the Cleveland thing," Calipari told Yahoo Sports during a "Coaches Beat Cancer" event earlier this week. Despite the Cavaliers now in the NBA Finals, Calipari regrets nothing and doesn't think about what might have been.
"No," Calipari said. "No, nope. Because what happened, and the reason I did what I did, was based on having guys come back who wanted to be coached. I didn't feel comfortable not being at Kentucky."
As we all know, the Wildcats were chasing 40-0 most of the year and would have gotten there had it not been for the Wisconsin Badgers in the Final Four. There was speculation that Calipari might make the leap back to the pros with rumors swirling he would be open to the New Orleans Pelicans coaching job, but he killed that notion real quick with this tweet:
"No regrets," Calipari said about turning down the Cavaliers. "I'll be watching. But regrets? No. None. ... I'm a guy that's usually looking through the front window." And he did that by signing an extension with Kentucky to pay him about $8 million a year.
